Deploy on older computers (HP dc7600)

[davidgoncalves]

Hi!

In our school, we have two different models of computers: HP Elite 8100 and some of old Core 2 Duo HP DC 7600’s. I have imaged almost 200 Elite’s with FOG, but we needed to image a couple of the old ones, and I got the “CPU Stall” error.

This is what appears on the screen:

When I use the acpi=off, I get this error:

Any suggestions? Thanks!!

[george1421]

@davidgoncalves Actually I found the post I was looking for here: https://forums.fogproject.org/post/128788

I know I worked quite a bit and eventually found this kernel parameter tsc=unstable this is not my post but this did solve it before. So replace the acpi=off with the unstable clock source. You can keep the default 4.19.146 version of the kernel if you are running fog 1.5.9

[george1421]

@davidgoncalves These old systems appear to have broken bios (firmware). Sometimes you can bypass this broken acpi code in the firmware by manually registering the host and then in the host settings page there is a field for kernel parameters add this to the kernel parameter for this troubled host acpi=off. Then pxe boot the computer. Then pxe boot and see if you can get past the CPU stall.

[davidgoncalves]

@george1421 Hello George! Thank you for the tip. That’s what I tried to do, but it didn’t work out, it gives me the error in the second image (kernel panic). There’s anything else I could do?

Thanks!

[george1421]

@davidgoncalves Sorry I missed that in between the pictures.

What version of fog are you using?

This idea may be too old and the inits might stop you but if I remember right an older kernel worked in one case. Download the 4.12.x 64 bit kernel from here https://fogproject.org/kernels/ save it as bzImage412 and move it to /var/www/html/fog/service/ipxe directory.

Then in the host definition for this system set the kernel to bzImage412. I’m suspecting the inits will say the kernel is too old, but we can try. Also grab 4.15.x and use the same naming convention.

If neither of these work I can look at building a custom kernel without the offending bits.

[george1421]

@davidgoncalves Actually I found the post I was looking for here: https://forums.fogproject.org/post/128788

I know I worked quite a bit and eventually found this kernel parameter tsc=unstable this is not my post but this did solve it before. So replace the acpi=off with the unstable clock source. You can keep the default 4.19.146 version of the kernel if you are running fog 1.5.9

[davidgoncalves]

@george1421 Hello, I’m running FOG 1.5.9 with Kernel 4.19.145. I’m going to try that and I’ll keep you update. Thank you, once again!

[davidgoncalves]

@george1421 Hello, tsc=unstable worked! Thanks. Since some of the computers don’t belong to our campus, and just come here to be reimaged, I tried to apply that parameter in the settings in all clients and it didn’t give us compatibility issues with more modern systems (I tested for example in HP Elite 8200’s and it worked perfectly).

Thank you for your assistance!