VBox 5.1 incompatible with Oracle Linux 5

[edstevens]

After upgrading VBox from 5.0.32 to 5.1.18, startup of an Oracle Linux 5 guest shows the following on the guest console:

Uhhuh. NMI received for unknown reason 21.
Do you have a strange power saving mode enabled?
Dazed and confused, but trying to continue.
Uhhuh. NMI received for unknown reason 31.
Do you have a strange power saving mode enabled?
Dazed and confused, but trying to continue.

These messages just keep scrolling, alternating between 'reason 21' and 'reason 31' until I finally stop the vm.

VBox version: 5.1.18r114002(Qt5.6.2) Host system: Win7 Pro 64-bit, 16 gb memory Guest system: Oracle Linux 5, 64-bit, 2048 mb memroy

Attaching guest log file vbpsdev-2017-03-29-10-36-06.zip

[edstevens]

Adding formatting to make reported messages easier to read:

Uhhuh. NMI received for unknown reason 21. 
Do you have a strange power saving mode enabled? 
Dazed and confused, but trying to continue. 
Uhhuh. NMI received for unknown reason 31. 
Do you have a strange power saving mode enabled? 
Dazed and confused, but trying to continue. 

[edstevens]

Tested on the following versions:

5.0.32
5.0.34
5.0.36
5.1.0

The error first appeared at 5.1.0

[Ramshankar Venkataraman]

Can you tell use the exact Oracle Linux 5 kernel you're using in the guest?

Post the output of the following from the guest:

uname -a
cat /etc/oracle-release

or if 'oracle-release' file doesn't exist, perhaps:

cat /etc/enterprise-release

[edstevens]

Linux release/version info, per request:

oracle:$ uname -a
Linux vbpsdev.vbdomain 2.6.18-128.el5 #1 SMP Wed Jan 21 08:45:05 EST 2009 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

oracle:$ cat /etc/oracle-release
cat: /etc/oracle-release: No such file or directory

oracle:$ cat /etc/enterprise-release
Enterprise Linux Enterprise Linux Server release 5.3 (Carthage)

oracle:$

[Frank Mehnert]

For such old guest kernels we suggest to use the kernel parameters divider=10 nmi_watchdog=0

[edstevens]

While my notes on creating a new Linux vm had an item about divider=10, setting nmi_watchdog was new to me. Set that, and problem appears to be resolved. Both OL5 vm's now boot properly under VBox 5.1.22.

[Frank Mehnert]

Thanks. I will close this ticket then.