On 18/12/15 23:19, Nathan Moore wrote:
> I have a box that's running SL7, intel 3930K i7 CPU, Intel DX79SR motherboard.
> 
> I had to build atlas on the board, which means I had to turn off the CPU
> frequency scaling in the bios. 
> 
> In the time since (after turning freq scaling back on, and occasionally
> before), I've seen the "Fast TSC calibration failed" error during boot.  This
> error locks up the machine and it doesn't make it to the login screen.
> 
> Most of the google results from this error call it harmless.  Does it sound
> like this error relates to my hardware (rather than SL7?)

This sounds like a clock source issue.  It may on some hardware very well
cause some odd lockups.  If it is permanent (hard lockup) or just causes a
"soft lockup" depends on how long you're willing to way.  More than
3-5 minutes, I'd consider a hard lockup.

Anyhow, that "Fast TSC calibration" error can most commonly be related to
hardware issues.  You can try to modify the kernel command line directly via
the grub meny (press [E] when you have the menu selection of kernels), locate
the 'kernel' line with arrow keys and press [E] again.  Then you can append
the clocksource= argument.  The values you can choose from are most commonly
tsc, hpet, acpi_pm or jiffies.  The order of the list I've given here is
usually the preferred order.  So I'd start by adding clocksource=hpet.  If
that's the same, move to acpi_pm and jiffies as the last attempt.

An okay starting point to dig deeper into the kernel clock sources can be this
URL: <http://www.elinux.org/Kernel_Timer_Systems>


--
kind regards,

David Sommerseth