newbie's request for info - xen - Fedora mailing-lists

6 Feb 2008


      Greetings list.
I have what might be a strange request but will ask it anyway -- but 
first some background info.
I am new to Xen, having just started using it on Fedora 8 within the 
last month or 2 on my server (homebuilt AMD x2 6400+ on Asus M2N-E Sli 
board and 8GB DDR2-800 memory on software RAID5 1TB).  Having great 
sucess on the server running 3 Windows VM's (XP Pro, 2000 server with 
SQL 2000, and SBS2003 server), I wanted to setup my laptop similarly for 
client demo purposes.  The laptop I am using is a new Dell Latitude D531 
running a Turion 64x2 TL-60 with 4GB memory and 100GB drive.
My problem is this -- booting into the xen kernel works fine (well, 
sound doesnt work and won't work with less than 2.6.23 kernel, but thats 
no big deal).  I can create a HVM using virt-manager, allocating memory, 
vcpu's, etc. etc.  However, upon booting the VM the entire laptop locks 
up (drive activity immediately stops, keyboard and mouse are completely 
unresponsive).  This forces a hard shutdown.  Upon starting back up the 
DomU VM is not listed and when I attempt to create a new fully 
virtualized VM (HVM?), I am told that virtualization support is present 
in the CPU but not enabled in the BIOS (but it IS .. verified many 
times).  I suspect that there is a bug in the BIOS that is showing 
virtualization enabled when in fact it is not.
My questions are:
1) Has anyone on this list seen the same symptoms and if so, did you 
find a workaround?
2) How do I go about logging and checking what is happening when it 
locks up so I can take that to Dell and file a bug report?
Thanks in advance for all pointers.
Bob J