Date: Thu, 11 Nov 2004 16:22:23 -0600 From: Josh Tolbert <hemi@puresimplicity.net> To: "Ketrien I. Saihr-Kesenchedra" <ketrien@error404.nls.net> Cc: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Subject: Re: number of CPUs and IPI panic Message-ID: <20041111222223.GA79419@just.puresimplicity.net> In-Reply-To: <4193E183.3000406@error404.nls.net> References: <20041111212920.30198.qmail@web54609.mail.yahoo.com> <4193E183.3000406@error404.nls.net>
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On Thu, Nov 11, 2004 at 05:02:43PM -0500, Ketrien I. Saihr-Kesenchedra wrote: > > To answer some of your questions Stephan; > The ALR Revolution 6x6 is a 6-way PPro; it uses two processor cards and > a SIMM or DIMM memory card. The processor cards contain partial BIOS, > VRMs, and CPUs (obviously.) They come in 1 through 3-way flavors. These > will -always- label the last processor as BSP; this is a hack so that > the installation socket is irrelevant. (ie; I can have one CPU in the > 3rd socket of a 3-way board, and the system will boot.) The system in > question here is undoubtedly a Unisys Aquanta HS/6 or HR/6. A genuine > ALR has no mention of Unisys in MPTable. The board has two distinct PCI > buses in addition to the EISA bus, which we do not appear to be > detecting correctly. In addition, we appear to erroneously detect a pcic > device; this may be the keyboard/mouse card. (Please forgive, my memory > is somewhat fuzzy.) > The amount of logic on the motherboard is nothing short of staggering; > the core is indeed i440GX Orion. HOWEVER, take a look at this picture: > http://www.vanvleet.net/images/rev6x6bd.gif > To the left of the single shared PCI/EISA slot are the PCI controllers. > Between them is a crystal, and above is a NatSemi SuperI/O (I believe.) > BOTH controllers are FULL southbridge chips. As you look between the CPU > slots and Memory slot, you should find two FULL i440GX's. That's not a > mistake; part of the ALR's magic is that the maximum number of PPros on > a chipset is 4; to get around this, they used two. I tried to find a > better picture to be more certain of the identification, but no such > luck I'm afraid, and the ALR's I have access to are running and can't be > disassembled. > > We have a very big problem here though; we're detecting 7 processors. > The ALR has a LOT of on-board logic. Handling it is very tricky; these > things required a special version of Windows NT or SCO, as I recall. We > should only be detecting 6 CPUs; we may be erroneously accepting part of > the bridging logic as a processor. (ISTR that the CPU board bridge > appears very similar to a processor.) I think an mptable dump would be > very helpful here; I'm wondering if we're not letting the board fake us > out with bridge logic presenting as a processor. > > -Ketrien I. Saihr-Kesenchedra / ketrien@error404.nls.net > _______________________________________________ > freebsd-current@freebsd.org mailing list > http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-current > To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-current-unsubscribe@freebsd.org" Win2K Advanced Server works just fine on these boxes, no special patches needed. FreeBSD-4.x ran just fine on my Revolution 6x6 (also 6x PII OverDrive; you can see it at http://www.puresimplicity.net/~hemi/Pics/Comps/ALR/). If you want high-detail pics of a 6x6 motherboard, let me know. I have a spare dead one that I looted some parts from to revive my working one. I haven't tried FreeBSD-5.x on my 6x6, mainly cause the thing is disassembled until I build a case for it. Mine never had problems crashing under heavy load with 4.x, though. Thanks, Josh -- Josh Tolbert hemi@puresimplicity.net || http://www.puresimplicity.net/~hemi/ If your sysadmin's not being fascist, you're paying him too much. --Sam Greenfield
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