RMRR firmware error message after kernel update to 5.10

[QF217]

Hi all,

Since updating to MX-21 Wildflower, I have been experiencing the same issue as OWL in this thread, but rather than necrothreadding I thought I'd start a new topic.

My laptop is a 5-year-old Lenovo Ideapad 305-15IBD, set up to dual-boot between MX Linux as my main OS and Windows 10 as the secondary one. After upgrading to MX-21 a couple of months ago, I now get the following error message upon booting up:

Code: Select all

[    0.071635] DMAR: [Firmware Bug] No firmware reserved region can cover this
RMRR [0x000000009d000000-0x000000009fffffff], contact BIOS vendor for fixes

I had been using MX-19 for about 2 years before upgrading and never had any such error messages appear.

I have done an internet search and it looks like users of Ubuntu-family Linux computers sometimes experience the same error message, but I can't find much helpful for users of machines running Debian.

It's not a huge problem, because my laptop still seems to boot up well and is still perfectly functional once it has booted up. It's just irritating...!

I would try to install an older kernel (pre-5.10) to see if that makes a difference, but none seems to be available in the MX or Debian repos in Package-Installer.

Here is my inxi -Fxxxrza output:

Code: Select all

System:    Host: <filter> Kernel: 5.10.0-9-amd64 x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: N/A 
           parameters: BOOT_IMAGE=/vmlinuz-5.10.0-9-amd64 
           root=UUID=<filter> ro quiet splash 
           Desktop: Xfce 4.16.0 tk: Gtk 3.24.24 info: xfce4-panel wm: xfwm4 dm: LightDM 1.26.0 
           Distro: MX-21_x64 Wildflower October 20  2021 base: Debian GNU/Linux 11 (bullseye) 
Machine:   Type: Laptop System: LENOVO product: 80NJ v: ideapad 305-15IBD serial: <filter> 
           Chassis: type: 10 v: ideapad 305-15IBD serial: <filter> 
           Mobo: LENOVO model: ideapad 305-15IB v: SDK0J40700 WIN serial: <filter> UEFI: LENOVO 
           v: A8CN54WW(V3.07) date: 09/02/2016 
Battery:   ID-1: BAT1 charge: 24.0 Wh condition: 24.0/28.5 Wh (84%) volts: 16.2/14.4 
           model: 0x53 0x41 0x4E 0x59 0x4F 0x00 0x 003041345333314C type: Li-ion 
           serial: <filter> status: Full 
CPU:       Topology: Dual Core model: Intel Core i3-5005U bits: 64 type: MT MCP arch: Broadwell 
           family: 6 model-id: 3D (61) stepping: 4 microcode: 2F L2 cache: 3072 KiB 
           flags: avx avx2 lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx bogomips: 15964 
           Speed: 798 MHz min/max: 500/1900 MHz Core speeds (MHz): 1: 798 2: 799 3: 798 4: 798 
           Vulnerabilities: Type: itlb_multihit status: KVM: VMX disabled 
           Type: l1tf mitigation: PTE Inversion; VMX: conditional cache flushes, SMT vulnerable 
           Type: mds mitigation: Clear CPU buffers; SMT vulnerable 
           Type: meltdown mitigation: PTI 
           Type: spec_store_bypass 
           mitigation: Speculative Store Bypass disabled via prctl and seccomp 
           Type: spectre_v1 mitigation: usercopy/swapgs barriers and __user pointer sanitization 
           Type: spectre_v2 mitigation: Full generic retpoline, IBPB: conditional, IBRS_FW, 
           STIBP: conditional, RSB filling 
           Type: srbds mitigation: Microcode 
           Type: tsx_async_abort status: Not affected 
Graphics:  Device-1: Intel HD Graphics 5500 vendor: Lenovo driver: i915 v: kernel 
           bus ID: 00:02.0 chip ID: 8086:1616 
           Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.11 driver: modesetting unloaded: fbdev,vesa 
           compositor: compton v: 1 resolution: 1366x768~60Hz 
           OpenGL: renderer: Mesa Intel HD Graphics 5500 (BDW GT2) v: 4.6 Mesa 20.3.5 
           direct render: Yes 
Audio:     Device-1: Intel Broadwell-U Audio vendor: Lenovo driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel 
           bus ID: 00:03.0 chip ID: 8086:160c 
           Device-2: Intel Wildcat Point-LP High Definition Audio vendor: Lenovo 
           driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel bus ID: 00:1b.0 chip ID: 8086:9ca0 
           Sound Server: ALSA v: k5.10.0-9-amd64 
Network:   Device-1: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet vendor: Lenovo 
           driver: r8169 v: kernel port: 3000 bus ID: 08:00.0 chip ID: 10ec:8168 
           IF: eth0 state: down mac: <filter> 
           Device-2: Intel Wireless 3160 driver: iwlwifi v: kernel port: 3000 bus ID: 09:00.0 
           chip ID: 8086:08b4 
           IF: wlan0 state: up mac: <filter> 
           IF-ID-1: virbr0 state: down mac: <filter> 
Drives:    Local Storage: total: 946.35 GiB used: 17.86 GiB (1.9%) 
           ID-1: /dev/sda vendor: Western Digital model: WD10JPCX-24UE4T0 size: 931.51 GiB 
           block size: physical: 4096 B logical: 512 B speed: 6.0 Gb/s rotation: 5400 rpm 
           serial: <filter> rev: 1A01 scheme: GPT 
           ID-2: /dev/sdb type: USB vendor: Generic model: SD MMC size: 14.84 GiB block size: 
           physical: 512 B logical: 512 B serial: <filter> rev: 1.00 scheme: MBR 
Partition: ID-1: / raw size: 20.00 GiB size: 19.52 GiB (97.59%) used: 15.43 GiB (79.1%) fs: ext4 
           dev: /dev/sda6 
           ID-2: /boot raw size: 1024.0 MiB size: 973.4 MiB (95.06%) used: 103.2 MiB (10.6%) 
           fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda7 
           ID-3: /home raw size: 781.55 GiB size: 768.22 GiB (98.29%) used: 2.30 GiB (0.3%) 
           fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda8 
           ID-4: swap-1 size: 8.00 GiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%) fs: swap swappiness: 15 (default 60) 
           cache pressure: 100 (default) dev: /dev/sda5 
Sensors:   System Temperatures: cpu: 38.0 C mobo: N/A 
           Fan Speeds (RPM): N/A 
Repos:     No active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list 
           Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/debian-stable-updates.list 
           1: deb http://deb.debian.org/debian bullseye-updates main contrib non-free
           Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/debian.list 
           1: deb http://deb.debian.org/debian bullseye main contrib non-free
           2: deb http://security.debian.org/debian-security bullseye-security main contrib non-free
           Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/mx.list 
           1: deb http://mxlinux.mirrors.uk2.net/packages/mx/repo/ bullseye main non-free
           Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/syncthing.list 
           1: deb https://apt.syncthing.net/ syncthing stable
Info:      Processes: 202 Uptime: 8m Memory: 7.69 GiB used: 720.4 MiB (9.2%) Init: systemd 
           v: 247 runlevel: 5 default: 5 Compilers: gcc: 10.2.1 alt: 10 Shell: quick-system-in 
           running in: quick-system-in inxi: 3.0.36 

Thank you for any pointers/advice you can give.


(Edit: Removed a couple of lines from the error message about "sdb caching mode" or some such - this was caused by the USB stick I used to update my BIOS before submitting this post, to see if that would resolve the error message. It didn't, and I'd left the stick inserted by mistake.)

[SwampRabbit]

@QF217 apologies on no one responding to you yet.

Taking a stab in the dark just based on the error message, I looked for a BIOS updated for your machine. Thanks for providing your Quick System Info which made it easy.

Sure enough it looks like you have the latest BIOS even though its pretty old.

I don't believe the warning is as dire as it makes it out to be, the kernel doesn't like something that the BIOS is presenting.

In dmesg, other entries (may not be warnings/errors) help identify what is going on.

Lets try this

Code: Select all

dmesg | grep -i -e DMAR

[QF217]

@SwampRabbit, thanks for the reply :)

Putting that dmesg command into a terminal returned this:

Code: Select all

$ dmesg | grep -i -e DMAR
[    0.012544] ACPI: DMAR 0x000000009CFCE000 0000B0 (v01 LENOVO CB-01    00000001 ACPI 00040000)
[    0.012578] ACPI: Reserving DMAR table memory at [mem 0x9cfce000-0x9cfce0af]
[    0.071402] DMAR: Host address width 39
[    0.071404] DMAR: DRHD base: 0x000000fed90000 flags: 0x0
[    0.071410] DMAR: dmar0: reg_base_addr fed90000 ver 1:0 cap 1c0000c40660462 ecap 7e1ff0505e
[    0.071411] DMAR: DRHD base: 0x000000fed91000 flags: 0x1
[    0.071417] DMAR: dmar1: reg_base_addr fed91000 ver 1:0 cap d2008c20660462 ecap f010da
[    0.071418] DMAR: RMRR base: 0x0000009cce9000 end: 0x0000009cd08fff
[    0.071419] DMAR: RMRR base: 0x0000009d800000 end: 0x0000009fffffff
[    0.071421] DMAR: [Firmware Bug]: No firmware reserved region can cover this RMRR [0x000000009d800000-0x000000009fffffff], contact BIOS vendor for fixes
[    0.071427] DMAR: [Firmware Bug]: Your BIOS is broken; bad RMRR [0x000000009d800000-0x000000009fffffff]
[    0.071429] DMAR-IR: IOAPIC id 2 under DRHD base  0xfed91000 IOMMU 1
[    0.071430] DMAR-IR: HPET id 0 under DRHD base 0xfed91000
[    0.071431] DMAR-IR: x2apic is disabled because BIOS sets x2apic opt out bit.
[    0.071432] DMAR-IR: Use 'intremap=no_x2apic_optout' to override the BIOS setting.
[    0.071957] DMAR-IR: Enabled IRQ remapping in xapic mode
[    0.373634] pci 0000:00:02.0: DMAR: Disabling IOMMU for graphics on this chipset
[    1.799184] DMAR: No ATSR found
[    1.799224] DMAR: dmar1: Using Queued invalidation
[    1.802111] DMAR: Intel(R) Virtualization Technology for Directed I/O

As I said, even though it says "your BIOS is broken", I agree that it isn't as dire as the error message states... I can still boot up and log in, after all. And it only happened after switching to MX-21, so it could just be my ancient (5-year-old) BIOS just doesn't like the new kernel, or vice versa.

[QF217]

Does that help at all? I don't know how to read the output of of that command, but it seems dmesg is telling us the same as the error message itself.

[j2mcgreg]

It's really nothing to worry about. See the second post in this thread from the Ubuntu forums for an explanation:

https://askubuntu.com/questions/1331090 ... roken-bios

[xukamunnam]

It's really nothing to worry about. See the second post in this thread from the Ubuntu forums for an explanation:

https://askubuntu.com/questions/1331090 ... roken-bios

I have the same issue after install virt manager to run vm window 11 and resolve it after trying smt with MX linux 21.2 KDE and the link in askUbuntu

1. boot from usb/cd live
2. go to mx tools -> boot options -> password is 'demo' -> replace row 'Kenel parameters' default value 'quiet splash' with 'intremap=no_x2apic_optout nox2apic' -> untick 'enable theme' on splash area -> apply (this mx-tools would automatically update-grub for you, because u can't sudo update-grub manually via usb.