Etch 2.6.18-5-486 stable but 2.6.18-5-686 crashes on PIII SMP???

I have installed Etch using a recent netinstall on a Dell Precision 410,
and had a lot of trouble initially with mysterious frequent
'segmentation fault' errors and total system freezes which required a
reset.

After some trial and error and some advice from the net I discovered that
if I installed the 2.6.18-5-486 kernel and booted that instead of the
2.6.18-5-686 kernel from the installer then all the instability went away.

However this leaves me without use of my second CPU and without access to
a 'bigmem' kernel to access all of my ram :(

I am hoping that there might be some kernel experts out there that can
offer some suggestions as to what might be going wrong with the 686
kernel, and which I might be able to try in order to resolve (or at least
explain) the problem...

/proc/cpuinfo returns:
processor : 0
vendor_id : GenuineIntel
cpu family : 6
model : 7
model name : Pentium III (Katmai)
stepping : 2
cpu MHz : 447.728
cache size : 512 KB
fdiv_bug : no
hlt_bug : no
f00f_bug : no
coma_bug : no
fpu : yes
fpu_exception : yes
cpuid level : 2
wp : yes
flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 mmx fxsr sse
bogomips : 896.10

I tried booting the 686 kernel with the 'nosmp' option to see if there was
a problem with the SMP implementation on this machine, but that made no
difference (other than giving me a single processor).

Anyone come across anything like this? Any kernel experts with any
idea what difference between these two kernels might explain this
problem?

A 'diff config-2.6.18-5-486 config-2.6.18-5-686' produces
4c4
< # Tue Oct 2 23:31:31 2007
---
> # Tue Oct 2 23:31:49 2007
24c24
< CONFIG_BROKEN_ON_SMP=y
---
> CONFIG_LOCK_KERNEL=y
40a41
> CONFIG_CPUSETS=y
72a74
> CONFIG_STOP_MACHINE=y
97c99
< # CONFIG_SMP is not set
---
> CONFIG_SMP=y
108c110
< CONFIG_M486=y
---
> # CONFIG_M486 is not set
112c114
< # CONFIG_M686 is not set
---
> CONFIG_M686=y
129c131
< CONFIG_X86_GENERIC=y
---
> # CONFIG_X86_GENERIC is not set
132c134
< CONFIG_X86_L1_CACHE_SHIFT=7
---
> CONFIG_X86_L1_CACHE_SHIFT=5
136d137
< CONFIG_X86_F00F_BUG=y
141,142c142,145
< CONFIG_X86_ALIGNMENT_16=y
< CONFIG_X86_INTEL_USERCOPY=y
---
> CONFIG_X86_CMPXCHG64=y
> CONFIG_X86_GOOD_APIC=y
> CONFIG_X86_USE_PPRO_CHECKSUM=y
> CONFIG_X86_TSC=y
143a147,149
> CONFIG_NR_CPUS=8
> CONFIG_SCHED_SMT=y
> CONFIG_SCHED_MC=y
147,148c153
< CONFIG_X86_UP_APIC=y
< CONFIG_X86_UP_IOAPIC=y
---
> # CONFIG_PREEMPT_BKL is not set
151c156,158
< # CONFIG_X86_MCE is not set
---
> CONFIG_X86_MCE=y
> CONFIG_X86_MCE_NONFATAL=m
> CONFIG_X86_MCE_P4THERMAL=y
167,168c174,175
< CONFIG_NOHIGHMEM=y
< # CONFIG_HIGHMEM4G is not set
---
> # CONFIG_NOHIGHMEM is not set
> CONFIG_HIGHMEM4G=y
170a178
> CONFIG_HIGHMEM=y
183c191,192
< CONFIG_MATH_EMULATION=y
---
> # CONFIG_HIGHPTE is not set
> # CONFIG_MATH_EMULATION is not set
185a195
> CONFIG_IRQBALANCE=y
193a204
> # CONFIG_CRASH_DUMP is not set
194a206
> CONFIG_HOTPLUG_CPU=y
195a208
> CONFIG_ARCH_ENABLE_MEMORY_HOTPLUG=y
204a218
> CONFIG_SUSPEND_SMP=y
220a235
> CONFIG_ACPI_HOTPLUG_CPU=y
253c268
< CONFIG_CPU_FREQ_STAT_DETAILS=y
---
> # CONFIG_CPU_FREQ_STAT_DETAILS is not set
306,313c321,322
< CONFIG_EISA=y
< CONFIG_EISA_VLB_PRIMING=y
< CONFIG_EISA_PCI_EISA=y
< CONFIG_EISA_VIRTUAL_ROOT=y
< CONFIG_EISA_NAMES=y
< CONFIG_MCA=y
< CONFIG_MCA_LEGACY=y
< # CONFIG_MCA_PROC_FS is not set
---
> # CONFIG_EISA is not set
> # CONFIG_MCA is not set
350c359
< CONFIG_HOTPLUG_PCI_COMPAQ_NVRAM=y
---
> # CONFIG_HOTPLUG_PCI_COMPAQ_NVRAM is not set
762d770
< CONFIG_DMASCC=m
815d822
< CONFIG_IRPORT_SIR=m
820d826
< # CONFIG_DONGLE_OLD is not set
1210d1215
< CONFIG_SCSI_AHA1740=m
1215d1219
< CONFIG_AIC7XXX_PROBE_EISA_VL=y
1262d1265
< CONFIG_SCSI_FD_MCS=m
1267,1269d1269
< CONFIG_SCSI_IBMMCA=m
< CONFIG_IBMMCA_SCSI_ORDER_STANDARD=y
< # CONFIG_IBMMCA_SCSI_DEV_RESET is not set
1278d1277
< CONFIG_SCSI_NCR_D700=m
1287,1292d1285
< CONFIG_SCSI_NCR_Q720=m
< CONFIG_SCSI_NCR53C8XX_DEFAULT_TAGS=8
< CONFIG_SCSI_NCR53C8XX_MAX_TAGS=4
< CONFIG_SCSI_NCR53C8XX_SYNC=5
< # CONFIG_SCSI_NCR53C8XX_PROFILE is not set
< CONFIG_SCSI_MCA_53C9X=m
1299,1300d1291
< CONFIG_SCSI_SIM710=m
< CONFIG_53C700_IO_MAPPED=y
1328d1318
< CONFIG_SBPCD=m
1331d1320
< CONFIG_CM206=m
1334d1322
< CONFIG_CDU31A=m
1472,1473d1459
< CONFIG_ELMC=m
< CONFIG_ELMC_II=m
1479d1464
< CONFIG_ULTRAMCA=m
1481d1465
< CONFIG_ULTRA32=m
1484d1467
< CONFIG_NI5010=m
1503d1485
< CONFIG_PCMCIA_XIRTULIP=m
1519,1520d1500
< CONFIG_NE2_MCA=m
< CONFIG_IBMLANA=m
1534d1513
< CONFIG_LNE390=m
1538,1539d1516
< CONFIG_NE3210=m
< CONFIG_ES3210=m
1601d1577
< CONFIG_MADGEMC=m
1811d1786
< CONFIG_ISDN_DRV_LOOP=m
1892,1893d1866
< CONFIG_HYSDN=m
< CONFIG_HYSDN_CAPI=y
2047c2020
< CONFIG_COMPUTONE=m
---
> # CONFIG_COMPUTONE is not set
2051c2024
< CONFIG_DIGIEPCA=m
---
> # CONFIG_DIGIEPCA is not set
2053c2026
< CONFIG_MOXA_INTELLIO=m
---
> # CONFIG_MOXA_INTELLIO is not set
2060d2032
< # CONFIG_RISCOM8 is not set
2063,2064c2035
< CONFIG_RIO=m
< CONFIG_RIO_OLDPCI=y
---
> # CONFIG_RIO is not set
2066,2067d2036
< CONFIG_STALLION=m
< CONFIG_ISTALLION=m
2088d2056
< CONFIG_SERIAL_8250_MCA=m
2182,2206d2149
< CONFIG_FTAPE=m
< CONFIG_ZFTAPE=m
< CONFIG_ZFT_DFLT_BLK_SZ=10240
<
< #
< # The compressor will be built as a module only!
< #
< CONFIG_ZFT_COMPRESSOR=m
< CONFIG_FT_NR_BUFFERS=3
< CONFIG_FT_PROC_FS=y
< CONFIG_FT_NORMAL_DEBUG=y
< # CONFIG_FT_FULL_DEBUG is not set
< # CONFIG_FT_NO_TRACE is not set
< # CONFIG_FT_NO_TRACE_AT_ALL is not set
<
< #
< # Hardware configuration
< #
< CONFIG_FT_STD_FDC=y
< # CONFIG_FT_MACH2 is not set
< # CONFIG_FT_PROBE_FC10 is not set
< # CONFIG_FT_ALT_FDC is not set
< CONFIG_FT_FDC_THR=8
< CONFIG_FT_FDC_MAX_RATE=2000
< CONFIG_FT_ALPHA_CLOCK=0
2276c2219
< CONFIG_I2C_ELEKTOR=m
---
> # CONFIG_I2C_ELEKTOR is not set
2492c2435
< CONFIG_USB_W9968CF=m
---
> # CONFIG_USB_W9968CF is not set
3060c3003
< CONFIG_USB_SERIAL_WHITEHEAT=m
---
> # CONFIG_USB_SERIAL_WHITEHEAT is not set
3253c3196
< CONFIG_EXT2_FS=y
---
> CONFIG_EXT2_FS=m
3264c3207
< CONFIG_FS_MBCACHE=y
---
> CONFIG_FS_MBCACHE=m
3500c3443
< CONFIG_LOG_BUF_SHIFT=14
---
> CONFIG_LOG_BUF_SHIFT=15
3582a3526,3528
> CONFIG_GENERIC_PENDING_IRQ=y
> CONFIG_X86_SMP=y
> CONFIG_X86_HT=y
3583a3530
> CONFIG_X86_TRAMPOLINE=y

I suppose I could start building new kernels, starting with the 486
config and gruadually moving to the 686 till the problem comes back.

But I am not really sure what a lot of the options do and what combinations
make sense, so I am hoping some kernel experts can give me some pointers
on likely culprits.

Thanks,
DigbyT
--
Digby R. S. Tarvin digbyt(at)digbyt.com
http://www.digbyt.com


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