From owner-freebsd-questions Sat Nov 2 22:12:25 2002 Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 0F43937B401 for ; Sat, 2 Nov 2002 22:12:24 -0800 (PST) Received: from boris.st.hmc.edu (boris.ST.HMC.Edu [134.173.63.11]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 7DBE443E75 for ; Sat, 2 Nov 2002 22:12:23 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from jeff@unixconsults.com) Received: from boris.st.hmc.edu (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by boris.st.hmc.edu (8.12.3/8.12.3) with ESMTP id gA36CEO0007022; Sat, 2 Nov 2002 22:12:14 -0800 (PST) Received: from localhost (jeff@localhost) by boris.st.hmc.edu (8.12.3/8.12.3/Submit) with ESMTP id gA36CA8m007019; Sat, 2 Nov 2002 22:12:14 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from jeff@unixconsults.com) X-Authentication-Warning: boris.st.hmc.edu: jeff owned process doing -bs Date: Sat, 2 Nov 2002 22:12:09 -0800 (PST) From: Jeff Jirsa X-X-Sender: jeff@boris.st.hmc.edu To: Jason Godfrey Cc: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Disk activity leading to hangs In-Reply-To: <20021102235447.D35685@sol.aptsolutions.com> Message-ID: <20021102220616.S7015-100000@boris.st.hmc.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII X-Virus-Scanned: by amavisd-milter on boris.st.hmc.edu 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 Sat, 2 Nov 2002, Jason Godfrey wrote: > > Basically under heavy disk load (buildworld, large package install, nightly > script run) the system will hang hard. The two systems have very little in > common, one is a P2 400 running FreeBSD-Stable from Oct 2, the other (a new > machine) is a AMD 1600+ running FreeBSD 4.5-Release. The faster machine seems > to hit the hange much more regularly. > > The only thing in common between the two machines I can think of is that they > both have Maxtor IDE drives on a Ultra-ATA channel. (On the P2 400 I've been > running in PIO mode, as that _seems_ to reduce the frequency of the hangs. > On the AMD it seems to make no difference.) > I've seen it too, with a 4.5 system with a maxtor drive. Unfortunately, I've never been able to track it down to anything certain: I was (and still am) leaning towards poor hardware over an OS fault. The only thing leading me to believe it's NOT a hardware issue is that the kernel seems to be running, although nothing responds: network activity lights flash on the NIC and switch, but NOTHING else works (have to powercycle). I remember someone else pointing out the same problem about a year ago, and nobody ever offered any explanation of the problem or even hinted at a solution. The last thread is here (watch the line wrap): http://docs.freebsd.org/cgi/getmsg.cgi?fetch=6504+0+archive/2002/freebsd-hackers/20020512.freebsd-hackers - Jeff To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message