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Date:      Wed, 08 May 2002 11:25:31 +0200
From:      "Stein M. Sandbech" <stein@ife.no>
To:        tlambert2@mindspring.com
Cc:        freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: Loosing IRQs on a FreeBSD4.4 based server.
Message-ID:  <3CD8EF0B.3020702@ife.no>
References:  <200205080743.JAA15115@wopr.ife.no>

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Thanks for the prompt reply, here's some more info:

> This really belongs on -question
> Followups are directed there.
OK

> Erich Boleyn's SMP documentation indicates that if you are using
> APIC I/O, you can lose ISA interrupts if they are masked at the
> APIC, instead of at the ISA PIC.
> 
> Since you aren't using SMP in your uniprocessor configuration,
> the fact that you are using SMP hardware is, I think, not really
> relevent to the problem you are seeing.
>  
>>On an Intel SRMK2 1U PentiumIII server (ServerWorks LE
>>chipset), we start loosing IRQs after a while, probably
>>while running X11 and KDE on the system. After a while
>>the machine ginds to a halt.
>  
> If you do not use X11, do you have this problem?  I can't
> believe this would be it... but on really old video hardware,
> interrupts were masked by the card itself to ensure updates
> to non-dual ported video RAM would occur during the raster's
> vertical retrace cycle.  This avoided "sparklies" on the
> screen.
> 
> Because your kdeinit is an hour and 20 to an hour and 35
> minutes after the problem, according to your log message, it's
> not really likely to be the problem (any problem related to
> that would be limited to the initialization phase, I think,
> though I do note that it's showing as a generic ISA VGA... an
> old card).
> 
> Does the problem occur without running KDE and X?  You never
> said, one way or the other.


It does not seem to occur when not running X11 and KDE. But I
can't say anything definitive yet (testing for an absense of
errors is hard :-).

I will increase the load on the system, and I will access the
system from another machine.
> Are you running NTP?  If you turn it off, does the problem
> go away?
No, I do not run NTP, however I plan to, though.

> Also, can you try 4.5-STABLE instead?  Soren made a lot of
> fixes to the ATA code, including tagged commands.  Not sure
> what would account for the FXP problems.
That would be the next step, yes. I still want to run some
stress tests over the next couple of weeks without X11/KDE.

Question: Is the ATA code active when I've disabled both IDE
controllers (both in BIOS and kernel config), and the system
is strictly SCSI based?

> Finally, I'll note that your fxp0 is sharing IRQ 10 with your
> USB hardware.  That may not be a good thing.  Try disabiling
> it and/or unplugging anything that's plugged in there, like the
> hub it looks like it's finding...
That's, funny. The machine have no USB devices connected. I must
check the kernel configuration file though, can't remember what
I've done there regarding USB.

Intel mentions in a Tech Update for the system, that it is
impossible to select "Legacy USB...enable/disable" in the
(our) current BIOS release. They have fixed it in the newest
release. My guess is that legacy USB support is no issue in this
context, though. I should probably update the BIOS anyways.

Another pice of information which I forgot in my first post.
Initially the machine had another Adaptech SCSI controller
(an AHA2940UW with a narrow SCSI connector externally) for the
external tape streamer, and I cannot remember that we had one
single hang/crash in that period (ca 1 month). Now the streamer
is connected to the 68pin micro SCSI connector on the integrated
SCSI controller. I have of course removed the Adaptec.

Again thank you again for your feedback, I really appreciate it!

> 
> -- Terry

-- Stein Morten

/*  Stein M Sandbech                       Email: stein@wopr.ife.no **
**  Owner & technical manager                                       **
**  Ing. Stein M. Sandbech                 Phone: +47 6380 6219     **
**                                         Phone: +47 6387 2320     **
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