Return to BSD News archive
Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!munnari.oz.au!news.Hawaii.Edu!ames!olivea!spool.mu.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!pipex!uknet!mcsun!sun4nl!philapd!apdnews!spoetnix.idca.tds.philips.nl!wilko From: wilko@idca.tds.philips.nl (Wilko Bulte) Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.questions Subject: Re: The reason for stray interrupts Message-ID: <wilko.751660652@spoetnix.idca.tds.philips.nl> Date: 26 Oct 93 18:37:32 GMT References: <2ais9gINN2t8@xs4all.hacktic.nl> Sender: news@idca.tds.philips.nl Lines: 39 ptuomola@hacktic.nl (Petri Tuomola) writes: >Many people have been asking why their machines display "ISA strayintr 7" >messages. This is an extract from /sys/arch/i386/isa/isa.c: > /* for some reason, we get bursts of intr #7, even if not enabled! */ > /* > * Well the reason you got bursts of intr #7 is because someone > * raised an interrupt line and dropped it before the 8259 could > * prioritize it. This is documented in the intel data book. This > * means you have BAD hardware! I have changed this so that only > * the first 5 get logged, then it quits logging them, and puts > * out a special message. rgrimes 3/25/1993 Hmm, I've read this piece of comment once in the source, and I don't think it is very sensible. One could argue that the 8259 is braindead (which is possibly true ;-) but this problem also occurs on machines with chipsets which integrate the intr controller and so have no actual 8259 chip. I have run *BSD on various systems, and I have still to find a system that does not complain about stray interrupts. And these systems were *not* bad hardware, they have run both AT&T and SCO Unix without any problems. (No comments on the virtues/vices of Sys V systems please). Concluding I'd suggest to rip this message out of the kernel, and avoid lot's of frustrated users. Or better yet, add a specific 'option' name in the kernel config file for those who like errors on the console ;-) just my $ 0.02 Wilko -- | / o / / _ Wilko Bulte mail: wilko@idca.tds.philips.nl |/|/ / / /( (_) |d|i|g|i|t|a|l| Equipment Corporation voice: +3155-432062 fax: +3155-432103 DTN: 829 2062 PO Box 245 - 7300 AE Apeldoorn - The Netherlands