From owner-freebsd-questions Fri Dec 28 14:47:23 2001 Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from freebie.xs4all.nl (freebie.xs4all.nl [213.84.32.253]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 283D337B420; Fri, 28 Dec 2001 14:47:13 -0800 (PST) Received: (from wkb@localhost) by freebie.xs4all.nl (8.11.6/8.11.6) id fBSMjom52536; Fri, 28 Dec 2001 23:45:50 +0100 (CET) (envelope-from wkb) Date: Fri, 28 Dec 2001 23:45:50 +0100 From: Wilko Bulte To: Glenn Johnson Cc: Greg Lehey , FreeBSD Questions , FreeBSD Hackers Subject: Re: Does FreeBSD have a problem with some AMD processors? Message-ID: <20011228234549.B51984@freebie.xs4all.nl> References: <20011228181009.F95692@monorchid.lemis.com> <20011228204612.GA1226@gforce.johnson.home> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline User-Agent: Mutt/1.2.5i In-Reply-To: <20011228204612.GA1226@gforce.johnson.home>; from glennpj@charter.net on Fri, Dec 28, 2001 at 02:46:12PM -0600 X-OS: FreeBSD 4.5-PRERELEASE X-PGP: finger wilko@freebsd.org Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG On Fri, Dec 28, 2001 at 02:46:12PM -0600, Glenn Johnson wrote: > On Fri, Dec 28, 2001 at 06:10:09PM +1030, Greg Lehey wrote: > > > I've been using AMD processors almost exclusively in my main work > > machines for over 4 years, and I've been very happy with them. I'm > > currently running a K6/233, a K6/333, an Athlon 750, a Duron 850 and > > an Athlon XP 1700. Last August, though, I bought a machine which gave > > me a lot of trouble, the Duron 850 mentioned above. I found that it > > would freeze for no apparent reason. I established that it wasn't the > > memory by taking the memory of another machine and running it like > > that; it made no difference. I ended up also changing the motherboard > > and the processor, but the hangs continued. I could expect a hang > > within 8 hours when doing 'make release' > > > > Just for the fun of it, I tried running Linux on it. I've been > > running a kernel build and 'make clean' on it now for 36 hours, and > > it's still running fine. Yesterday some Linux friends of mine came > > around and looked at it and told me that the Linux kernel I was > > running on the machine (2.4.16) had had a number of AMD-specific > > fixes put in. He didn't go into more detail, unfortunately, but I'll > > ask him again when I have time: it could be something relating to > > chipset bugs we have seen and fixed. It would help to know, though, > > if other people are experiencing similar problems. Please let me > > know if you're having problems with AMD processors which seem to be > > specific to FreeBSD, especially if they're hangs (i.e. the machine > > stops reacting, but the display still shows the last state, it doesn't > > reboot or panic). > > I have had this exact problem. I have an Epox 8KTA board with a > 1GHz Athlon (Thunderbird) with 256MB of PC-133 memory. I would > consistently get random errors, usually during a compilation, using > the default BIOS settings. After fiddling with some of the BIOS > options, such as enabling PCI burst, the system runs pretty stable. > However, occasionally I will get that freeze that you refer to during a > buildworld. As far as I can tell though if I set the memory clock to > 100MHz the problem goes away completely, or at least I have not observed > it happen yet. Another thing that struck my mind that bit me once: byte merging or write combine (I forgot the right phrase the bios setup used) was rather fatal for the stability of the machine. Wilko -- | / o / /_ _ email: wilko@FreeBSD.org |/|/ / / /( (_) Bulte Arnhem, The Netherlands To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message