From: Theodore Ts'o (tytso@athena.mit.edu)
Date: 06/28/93


From: Theodore Ts'o <tytso@athena.mit.edu>
Subject: Re: "Wild Interrupt" / Soundblaster problem
Date: 28 Jun 1993 16:06:08 -0400


   From: hikaru@infodn.rmi.de (Walter Doerr)
   Date: 20 Jun 93 21:48:16 GMT

   I am running 0.99pl9 and encounter the message "Wild Interrupt? (IRQ7)"
   during the boot sequence.

   What does this message mean? Does it indicate a hardware problem?
   I have removed all boards that are jumpered to generate IRQ7 (LPT, SB)
   but the message persists.

This message means that you have a cheap motherboard, and somewhere,
some RF-generated interference occasionally causes one of your interrupt
lines on your bus to float for a microsecond. The interrupt controller
on your motherboard sensed the this, but the interrupt was asserted for
such a small amount of time that it was not able to determine which line
caused it, and so it generated an interrupt of 7 in absence of any
better information. This is apparently documented in the datasheet for
the interrupt controller.

                                                - Ted