Hi, I have, what I think is a badly set-up scsi system. I think there is an issue with the termination, the attached drives are wide-scsi and I think there is some issue with the termination. That isn't the interesting bit though. When booting with a freshly compiled 2.6.16.12 kernel, running headless with the output coming in on ttyS1, I can get the kernel to oops by pressing any key (sending a keypress down the serial line) while it is trying to figure out what is going on with the scsi subsystem. With the external scsi it boots fine. Interestingly, this did not happen with the debian-rolled 2.4.27 kernel (as in, it would complain about the scis, but not crash when i pressed keys). Thought this may be useful to someone. Please let me know if you need any further information. Cheers, Damian Linux version 2.6.16.12 (ddimmich@indigo) (gcc version 4.0.3 20051201 (prerelea6 ARCH: SGI-IP22 PROMLIB: ARC firmware Version 1 Revision 10 CPU revision is: 00000460 FPU revision is: 00000500 MC: SGI memory controller Revision 3 MC: Probing memory configuration: bank0: 64M @ 10000000 bank1: 32M @ 14000000 bank2: 128M @ 08000000 Determined physical RAM map: memory: 0e000000 @ 08000000 (usable) Built 1 zonelists Kernel command line: root=/dev/sda1 console=ttyS0 auto Primary instruction cache 16kB, physically tagged, direct mapped, linesize 16 b. Primary data cache 16kB, direct mapped, linesize 16 bytes. Unified secondary cache 1024kB direct mapped, linesize 128 bytes. Synthesized TLB refill handler (21 instructions). Synthesized TLB load handler fastpath (33 instructions). Synthesized TLB store handler fastpath (33 instructions). Synthesized TLB modify handler fastpath (32 instructions). EISA: Probing bus... EISA: Detected 0 card. ISA support compiled in. PID hash table entries: 2048 (order: 11, 32768 bytes) Calibrating system timer... 100500 [201.0000 MHz CPU] Using 100.500 MHz high precision timer. Console: colour dummy device 80x25 Dentry cache hash table entries: 65536 (order: 6, 262144 bytes) Inode-cache hash table entries: 32768 (order: 5, 131072 bytes) Memory: 222688k/229376k available (2385k kernel code, 6556k reserved, 518k data) Mount-cache hash table entries: 512 Checking for 'wait' instruction... unavailable. NET: Registered protocol family 16 EISA bus registered SCSI subsystem initialized VFS: Disk quotas dquot_6.5.1 Dquot-cache hash table entries: 1024 (order 0, 4096 bytes) Initializing Cryptographic API io scheduler noop registered io scheduler anticipatory registered (default) io scheduler deadline registered io scheduler cfq registered serio: i8042 AUX port at 0xbfbd9843,0xbfbd9847 irq 44 serio: i8042 KBD port at 0xbfbd9843,0xbfbd9847 irq 44 Serial: IP22 Zilog driver (1 chips). ttyS0 at MMIO 0xc001a830 (irq = 45) is a IP22-Zilog Console: ttyS0 (IP22-Zilog) ttyS1 at MMIO 0xc001c838 (irq = 45) is a IP22-Zilog eth0: SGI Seeq8003 08:00:69:08:43:b2 wd33c93-0: chip=WD33c93B/13 no_sync=0xff no_dma=0 debug_flags=0x00 setup_args=,,,,,,,,, Version 1.26 - 22/Feb/2003, Compiled Apr 15 2006 at 10:15:46 wd33c93-1: chip=unknown/255 no_sync=0xff no_dma=0 debug_flags=0x00 setup_args=,,,,,,,,, Version 1.26 - 22/Feb/2003, Compiled Apr 15 2006 at 10:15:46 --UNKNOWN INTERRUPT:80:01:00--<6>scsi0 : SGI WD93 sending SDTR 0103013f0csync_xfer=2c<5> Vendor: SEAGATE Model: ST34501W 8 Type: Direct-Access ANSI SCSI revision: 02 scsi1 : SGI WD93 scsi1: warning : SCSI command probably completed successfully before ab4 Oops[#1]: Cpu 0 $ 0 : 00000000 1000cc01 01470000 00000000 $ 4 : 95e5dc00 bfbd9830 882a1ee0 1000cc00 $ 8 : 1000cc00 1000001f 00000000 89364000 $12 : 00000002 88310000 ffffffff 00000001 $16 : 00000004 95e5dc00 bfbd9830 0147ae13 $20 : 882a1ee0 88310000 00000038 887fe594 $24 : 00000000 00000000 $28 : 882a0000 882a1df8 00000001 8819b784 Hi : 000000f7 Lo : ae135c80 epc : 8819b254 ip22zilog_receive_chars+0x38/0x3cc Not tainted ra : 8819b784 ip22zilog_interrupt+0x19c/0x1a4 Status: 1000cc03 KERNEL EXL IE Cause : 30000008 BadVA : 00000000 PrId : 00000460 Modules linked in: Process swapper (pid: 0, threadinfo=882a0000, task=882a2000) Stack : 00200200 882a1e68 0000001a 01baa080 00000000 883142dc 00000004 95e5dc00 bfbd9830 0147ae13 882a1ee0 88310000 00000038 887fe594 00000001 8819b784 0000000a 88310000 00000001 88315dd0 95e58300 00000000 00000000 00000001 882a1ee0 0000002d 88810000 8804bd88 882a1e68 882a1e68 00000000 883142dc 882d75e0 95e58300 0000002d fffffffb 88310000 882a1ee0 8804beb0 8804bf24 ... Call Trace: [<8819b784>] ip22zilog_interrupt+0x19c/0x1a4 [<8804bd88>] handle_IRQ_event+0x80/0xf8 [<8804beb0>] __do_IRQ+0xb0/0x140 [<8804bf24>] __do_IRQ+0x124/0x140 [<882d9000>] kernel_entry+0x0/0x7c [<882d9000>] kernel_entry+0x0/0x7c [<880067cc>] do_IRQ+0x1c/0x34 [<8802ee88>] do_softirq+0x90/0xbc [<88003620>] indyIRQ+0x120/0x180 [<88003608>] indyIRQ+0x108/0x180 [<882d9000>] kernel_entry+0x0/0x7c [<88006e6c>] cpu_idle+0x48/0x50