Addendum... can it be related to this? I am just quoting from debian bug 277298 and sites quoted therein...
I saw this: http://lists.us.dell.com/pipermail/linux- poweredge/2005-February/042501.html which suggests that the RTC hang issue can be solved by setting CONFIG_HPET_RTC_IRQ=y I have confirmed that on a dell 1850, which used to hang when hwclock ran, the above configuration setting allows a normal boot. I suspect, but have not yet confirmed, that disabling HPET may also prevent hangs. and also... Found by Googling for "8208CA", and then reading Google's "cached" copy. (This stuff isn't easy to find - the original has evidently been taken down: sunsite.rediris.es/sites/download.intel.nl/ design/chipsets/specupdt/290739.htm ^^ Estonia??) This document may or may not explain 2.8.1 real-time clock problem. Problem: Under certain conditions, a CPU generated I/O read to RTC (Real Time Clock) registers 0-9 may return an incorrect value. The issue occurs on the read path from the RTC registers and the RTC value in the registers is not impacted. Should the certain conditions occur, one or more of the bits read from the RTC registers may be incorrect. The issue has only been found using a synthetic test and has not been seen using commercially available software. [ <= N.B. ] "Implication: An operating system or software applications which synchronizes the time/date value with the RTC <registers may get an incorrect value. "Workaround: BIOS workaround is available in the Intel ICH3-S BIOS Specification Update Rev 2.01. The workaround does take into account multiple CPUs and Hyper Threading. The workaround uses timers to zero-in on the window where invalide RTC I/O read data could be returned. Using the software SMI, HPET timers and port 71 traps, the BIOS will ensure that there are no accesses to the RTC during this timing window. -- Ubuntu corrupts real time clock on some dell laptops https://launchpad.net/bugs/43745 -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
