Date: Fri, 15 Oct 2004 04:14:04 -0400 (EDT) From: Robert Watson <rwatson@freebsd.org> To: Guido van Rooij <guido@gvr.org> Cc: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Subject: Re: 5.3-BETA7 install cd: kernel trap 12 with interrupts disabled Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.3.96L.1041015041209.84384g-100000@fledge.watson.org> In-Reply-To: <20041015073118.GA19660@gvr.gvr.org>
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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
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