Nios II with MMU hanging after boot

Well, after poking around I realized that the code to calibrate the delay is in the file ~/nios2-linux/linux-2.6/init/calibrate.c

The lines causing the hang are the following:

        if (!printed)
            pr_info("Calibrating delay loop... \n");
        while ((loops_per_jiffy <<= 1) != 0) {
            /* wait for "start of" clock tick */
            ticks = jiffies;
            while (ticks == jiffies)
                /* nothing */;
            /* Go .. */
            ticks = jiffies;
            __delay(loops_per_jiffy);
            ticks = jiffies - ticks;
            if (ticks)
                break;
        }

This corresponds to line numbers from 144 to 157. The hang occurs at

while(ticks == jiffies)

because the value of "jiffies" never change. My guess is that my timer component is not ticking. So, what can I do to debug the timer? Or is it really the timer?

Thanks in advance

Bruno