From owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Fri Oct 15 08:15:50 2004 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 91BA316A4CE; Fri, 15 Oct 2004 08:15:50 +0000 (GMT) Received: from fledge.watson.org (fledge.watson.org [204.156.12.50]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 1ABA743D31; Fri, 15 Oct 2004 08:15:50 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from robert@fledge.watson.org) Received: from fledge.watson.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by fledge.watson.org (8.13.1/8.13.1) with ESMTP id i9F8E4YU054215; Fri, 15 Oct 2004 04:14:04 -0400 (EDT) (envelope-from robert@fledge.watson.org) Received: from localhost (robert@localhost)i9F8E4pn054212; Fri, 15 Oct 2004 04:14:04 -0400 (EDT) (envelope-from robert@fledge.watson.org) Date: Fri, 15 Oct 2004 04:14:04 -0400 (EDT) From: Robert Watson X-Sender: robert@fledge.watson.org To: Guido van Rooij In-Reply-To: <20041015073118.GA19660@gvr.gvr.org> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII cc: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Subject: Re: 5.3-BETA7 install cd: kernel trap 12 with interrupts disabled X-BeenThere: freebsd-current@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: Discussions about the use of FreeBSD-current List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 15 Oct 2004 08:15:50 -0000 On Fri, 15 Oct 2004, Guido van Rooij wrote: > It turns out this was a memory problem. Refitting the dimms was all > that was needed to 'solve' the issue. The weird thing is that > 1. The BIOS had memtesting enabled and did not complain > 2. W2K seemed to install ok (though I never let it hit the disk) > 3. FBSD would repeatedly crash at exactly the same spot. > > I am beginning to wonder if we should have a boot option that enables a > thorough memtest from within the kernel...(e.g. boot -m). I guess the old /dev/test_for_shoddy_workmanship driver is working :-). It's probably just bad luck -- BIOS memory testing is generally pretty poor, and it could just be FreeBSD stored your root vnode pointer (or some other critical thing) in a memory word that Win2K was using for an icon, so a single bit twiddle did pretty different things. Glad it's fixed. I occasionally wonder if we shouldn't build a memory tester into the FreeBSD boot loader to help diagnose this sort of stuff, though. Not to run every boot, but as a diagnostics option. Robert N M Watson FreeBSD Core Team, TrustedBSD Projects robert@fledge.watson.org Principal Research Scientist, McAfee Research