From owner-freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Dec 29 23:58:12 2004 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 013E016A4CF for ; Wed, 29 Dec 2004 23:58:12 +0000 (GMT) Received: from cicero2.cybercity.dk (cicero2.cybercity.dk [212.242.40.53]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 5A99943D45 for ; Wed, 29 Dec 2004 23:58:11 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from cr@it.dk) Received: from user1.cybercity.dk (user1.cybercity.dk [212.242.41.34]) by cicero2.cybercity.dk (Postfix) with ESMTP id 7225918F696 for ; Thu, 30 Dec 2004 00:58:09 +0100 (CET) Received: from localhost (port1922.ds1-vbr.adsl.cybercity.dk [212.242.174.229]) by user1.cybercity.dk (Postfix) with SMTP id 4B3B674FF15 for ; Thu, 30 Dec 2004 00:58:09 +0100 (CET) From: Christian R. To: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org Date: Thu, 30 Dec 2004 00:55:55 +0100 Message-ID: <2rg6t0ll6th99497btiu13foetanfrn0gr@4ax.com> X-Mailer: Forte Agent 1.93/32.576 English (American) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Subject: Memory handling problem with FreeBSD 5.3? X-BeenThere: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: Production branch of FreeBSD source code List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 29 Dec 2004 23:58:12 -0000 I have installed FreeBSD 5.3-STABLE i386 on a new Dell PowerEdge 2850, but it crashes under load like "make buildworld" with a "panic: page fault". The server has following configuration: 2x Intel Xeon 3.4 GHz (800 MHz =46SB), 6x 1 GB DDR2 ECC RAM and Perc 4e/Di (LSI Logic/amr driver). After some days working on the problem, I think there is some problem with handling the memory. The only way I have got the server to become stable was by switching a special option in the Dell BIOS, which limits the system memory to 256 MB. I have tried to limit the memory to 4 GB by activating a spare memory bank, but the server still crashes. Disabling HTT in BIOS and ACPI in the loader also didn't solved the problem. The kernel is compiled with SMP of course and PAE because of >4 GB memory. I have removed all the unnecessary devices. Dells own diagnostic tool couldn't find any hardware errors. The special memory test also passed all tests. I have also tried with memtest (http://www.memtest.org/) which either could find any memory errors. Has anyone an idea to a solution? Has anyone succeeded running FreeBSD 5.3 on similar hardware? Would it maybe be better to run the AMD64 version of FreeBSD 5.3? I think the i386 version should be more stable?