From owner-freebsd-hardware@FreeBSD.ORG Sun Nov 12 08:24:54 2006 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-hardware@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-hardware@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id EC36516A412 for ; Sun, 12 Nov 2006 08:24:54 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from fbsd-hardware@mawer.org) Received: from customer-domains.icp-qv1-irony12.iinet.net.au (customer-domains.icp-qv1-irony12.iinet.net.au [203.59.1.157]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id C8A1243D73 for ; Sun, 12 Nov 2006 08:24:53 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from fbsd-hardware@mawer.org) Received: from 203-206-173-235.perm.iinet.net.au (HELO [127.0.0.1]) ([203.206.173.235]) by customer-domains.icp-qv1-irony12.iinet.net.au with ESMTP; 12 Nov 2006 16:24:51 +0800 X-IronPort-Anti-Spam-Filtered: true X-IronPort-Anti-Spam-Result: AgAAAOpoVkXLzq3r/2dsb2JhbAAN X-IronPort-AV: i="4.09,414,1157299200"; d="scan'208"; a="25608756:sNHT85088043" Message-ID: <4556D9F6.9050604@mawer.org> Date: Sun, 12 Nov 2006 19:23:18 +1100 From: Antony Mawer User-Agent: Thunderbird 1.5.0.8 (Windows/20061025) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: white@prokhorenko.us References: In-Reply-To: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Cc: freebsd-hardware@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Core 2 Duo and FreeBSD X-BeenThere: freebsd-hardware@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: General discussion of FreeBSD hardware List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sun, 12 Nov 2006 08:24:55 -0000 On 10/11/2006 1:52 PM, Olexandr Prokhorenko wrote: > I¹m considering getting a new Core 2 Duo (Intel® Core 2 Duo E6400 CPU > 2.13GHz) server to run under FreeBSD. I briefly searched the Internet and > found some concerns and trouble reports about FreeBSD and Core 2 Duo > servers. I really need to use this server for high load production use and > it¹s not acceptable for me to have the server running into any kind of > problems, crashes, or whatever else. As an alternative to Core 2 Duo, I was > thinking about Intel® Pentium® D 945 Dual Core 3.4GHz, but I was told that > it has significantly less power. It would help to know what sort of system you are looking at - eg. vendor & model number or at least the motherboard manufacturer and model. This will likely have a great deal of impact on the stability of the drivers for the system. The Core 2 Duo chips are definitely worth considering in favour of the more mediocre Pentium D's. I recently build a Core 2 Duo based system on an Intel DQ965GF motherboard, with which I had issues with the onboard Marvell PATA controller not working. I was able to work around the issue by using a PCI PATA controller for the CD-ROM during installation, after which the drive was no longer needed. The onboard SATA II ports appeared to work fine, and the system survived load testing running an SMP kernel on 6.2-BETA3 (at the time) without any apparent issues. You may want to hang out for 6.2-RELEASE before committing the server to production, as there have been issues regarding the em (Intel GBit) driver in the candidates leading up to the release. --Antony