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"Spurious 8259A interrupt: IRQ7" error msg (Solved

Posted: Sat 30 Jul 2005, 23:22
by mouldy
On my type 2 install of MurgaPuppy 1.0.1, I suddenly am getting message of "spurious 8259A interrupt: IRQ7" just after what should be final shutdown message. It then hangs and only way to shut off computer is to pull wall plug. Ideas?

Posted: Sun 31 Jul 2005, 03:37
by Ian
Can you post the details of your machine mouldy.

Is it a laptop.

Posted: Sun 31 Jul 2005, 04:03
by Ian
Just did a quick web search, this might help,

http://jmz.iki.fi/blog.php/en/article/1057989236

Posted: Sun 31 Jul 2005, 10:55
by mouldy
This is a P2 desktop with abit motherboard, 366 celeron processor, and 256mb ram. I've run win, BeOS, and various distributions of linux on it (including a progression of Puppies) with no such problem before. At least not that I remember.

This "spurious" hangup now occurs with 1.0.4 cd Puppy also. I have reset all bios defaults but made no difference.

Posted: Sun 31 Jul 2005, 13:03
by Ian
It seems strange that Puppy has this problem if other versions of Linux work alright on your machine.

Have you tried anything earlier than Puppy 1.0.1

Posted: Sun 31 Jul 2005, 17:30
by mouldy
No you misunderstand. I have run Puppy from at least back to 0.8.6 to 1.0.4. All worked correctly with no error until yesterday. Now Puppy and Mepis both give the "spurious" error right after power down and then hang. As well as live cd versions of linux, booted from cdrom. This 'spurious' message just started out of the blue. Not because I suddenly used a new variety of Puppy or any other operating system.

Thats why my first notion was to reset to default everything in bios, thinking some setting got changed somehow. That however didnt help. All varieties of Puppy still run fine, computer just wont shut down properly.

Posted: Sun 31 Jul 2005, 18:01
by mouldy
Ok, read bunch of google stuff. Didnt seem to apply since all I read about had this problem when first installing linux with 2.4.x kernel on their computer.

Did try swapping graphics cards since some said this fixed their problem. No change. Then moved graphics card to different pci slot. Voila. That solved it. Guess it was a hardware failure problem. Lucky I have plenty slots unlike some cheapo modern motherboards with one or two slots.

Posted: Sun 31 Jul 2005, 18:36
by mouldy
Aw nuts, its back. GRRRR...

Posted: Sun 31 Jul 2005, 20:20
by Flash
Hmm. Try wiggling the graphics card vigorously in the slot. See if that makes it go away. Or cram a piece of plastic against it to bend it slightly one way or another.

Posted: Mon 01 Aug 2005, 23:43
by mouldy
OK, swapped processors and everything is fine. Have shut down several times just to be sure.

Posted: Tue 02 Aug 2005, 00:47
by Ian
If the problem resurfaces try reseating or changing your RAM as it now is showing up as a hardware problem, I have found that the CPUs usually just die or need reseating.

Maybe the whole system could do with a complete unplug and reseat all hardware and connectors as over time oxidization can cause problems at times.