Date: Thu, 9 Nov 2000 21:04:56 +0100 (CET) From: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?G=E9rard_Roudier?= <groudier@club-internet.fr> To: Paolo Tealdi <tealdi@sb.polito.it> Cc: freebsd-hardware@FreeBSD.ORG, freebsd-smp@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Compaq DL370 [long] Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.10.10011092049290.1381-100000@linux.local> In-Reply-To: <5.0.0.25.0.20001109083543.00a9a6a0@averroe.polito.it>
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I don't know about SMP, but could you please let me know what driver is attaching your SYMBIOS controller. Could be either `sym' or `ncr', but they differ regarding parity checking handling. OTOH, are you sure it is a SCSI parity error that is reported. When using the `sym' driver, PCI parity errors are also reported. Now, if this PCI|SCSI parity error is a real parity error, you should, IMHO, check if NT would not be working for the reason it wouldn't care about SCSI|PCI parity checking being _actually_ enabled. It may be unbelievable that COMPAQ is selling hardware that fails parity, but this should be checked, in my opinion. Btw, the latest nasty parity problem I have had to work around in `sym' driver was a PCI parity problem that occurs on some systems using SYMBIOS PCI-SCSI chips. Latest `sym' driver in -RELENG4 and -current does detect that, WARN USER ABOUT, and disable PCI parity checking by the master. Gérard. On Thu, 9 Nov 2000, Paolo Tealdi wrote: > As i already asked in the list, i'm trying to understand if FreeBSD support > the hardware in subject. > I tried to install FreeBSD on a system at my vendor's home and i found some > interesting (and funny) things. > > The system was a > single / double processor 733 MHz > 128 MB memory > standard COMPAQ SCSI controller (symbios) > standard COMPAQ ETHERNET controller > > S.O. : FBSD 4.1 RELEASE > > 1) First, i tried to start booting directly from Fbsd CDROM. > The system seemed to start, system recognized the scsi controller, but > when checked the hard disk suddendly presented an error (seemed a parity > error on SCSI, if i remember well )and the installation program aborted as > it didn't find any disk. > > 2)consequently I loaded the COMPAQ SYSTEM INSTALLATION CDROM, I configured > the system for an "other operating system" and i tried again to start with > FreeBSD CDROM. This time all went OK. I installed the system, booted > sometimes and all seemed well (also network controller was found). > > 3) Unfortunately the hardware the vender gave me was a single processor but > i would like to buy a double processor system, so the vendor told me that > he managed to receive one more and continue the test.And so we did. > > 4) Yesterday the vendor contacted me the processor was arrived and that i > could go to do the final testing, and so i did. > > 5)The vendor told me that he didn't touched the original system (it is an > NT guru and doesn't know ANYTHING about *nix ) and we installed the second > processor. The system bootstrapped, all seemed to go well, FreeBSD seemed > to recognized the second processor (the last thing i did the first time was > to rebuild the kernel with SMP support, and i did it only decommenting the > option SMP , option APIC and default for NPROCS ... copying GENERIC > configuration) but when it tried to load the root partition again i found > the original error (parity on SCSI bus). > > 6) This time i suggested that there was an hardware problem, so we tried to > install NT4 .After one hour of installation (it's not so quick as FBSD) the > NT4 server seemed to be installed OK, without any error ( :-(( ) . > > 7) So i reinstalled FBSD, after server setup installation with two > processor and again all seemed to go OK. I recompiled the kernel (again > decommenting only SMP options) and this time (for three consecutive time ) > FBSD hung on boot after APIC check, one time messaging that it got an > uninspected interrupt (43) (kernel config defaults are for 25 interrupts) > and the others two without any message. > > 8) I stopped any kernel rebuilding, as i'm not so skilled with SMP > installation. > > After this (very long) story i'd like to ask : > > a) All these things are normal for a double processor system ? > b) Must i continue to try changing parameters in kernel configurations ? > c) Can be an hardware problem ? > d) It's normal for COMPAQ hardware ? > e) There are significant change on 4.2 for SMP that can avoid this problems ? > f) Anybody has found similar SCSI and double processor problems with Compaq > or other vendors hardware ? > > I installed FBSD on a variety of servers ( mostly compatible) but never > happened to me these things ... In any case i have never installed a double > processor system. > > Sorry for the long story, and for my not so well english. ... > > Best regards, Paolo Tealdi > > > > Ing. Paolo Tealdi Library & News System Administrator > Politecnico Torino Phone : +39-11-5646714 , FAX : +39-11-5646799 > C.so D. degli Abruzzi, 24 - 10129 Torino - ITALY Email: tealdi@sb.polito.it > > > > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org > with "unsubscribe freebsd-smp" in the body of the message To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hardware" in the body of the messagehome | help
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