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Date:      Sat, 25 Aug 2012 12:21:43 -0700
From:      Yuri <yuri@rawbw.com>
To:        attilio@freebsd.org
Cc:        freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: How to diagnose system freezes?
Message-ID:  <503925C7.7080202@rawbw.com>
In-Reply-To: <CAJ-FndCEswmVqSK7TR=ZfcGCrQkvV7us-dHFL%2BSsZ0BnjqMzvA@mail.gmail.com>
References:  <501871FD.601@rawbw.com> <CAJ-FndCEswmVqSK7TR=ZfcGCrQkvV7us-dHFL%2BSsZ0BnjqMzvA@mail.gmail.com>

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On 07/31/2012 17:20, Attilio Rao wrote:
> Start by adding SW_WATCHDOG to your machine with a reasonably low timeout.
> Also, can you use a serial console? If yes you may consider going with
> a serial break.

The difference with the GENERIC is mainly the addition of these lines, 
which make it debug image and add SW_WATCHDOG, etc. (also add dtrace)
options     KDTRACE_FRAME        # Ensure frames are compiled in
options     KDTRACE_HOOKS        # Kernel DTrace hooks
options DDB_CTF
makeoptions WITH_CTF=1
makeoptions DEBUG="-g"
options SW_WATCHDOG
options DIAGNOSTIC
options DDB      # Support DDB.
options GDB      # Support remote GDB

Npw, with this config, system doesn't hang indefinitely. Instead, it 
hangs for ~1 minute and then reboots. It doesn't drop into debugger and 
doesn't leave anything in messages.

I didn't yet try 4BSD scheduler as Doug Barton suggested.

Anything else I can try?

One thing of importance here is that there is an older graphics card 
9400 GT on this system and current nvidia-driver-295.71 has an issue 
with 9400 GT: it makes graphics to malfunction (unpainted windows, long 
delays switching to terminal mode) or freezes Xorg (but not OS). So I 
run the older nvidia-driver-285.05.09 which appears to work.
That's why I think that nvidia driver is probably to blame for these 
periodic OS freezes. Also the latest driver version must be, obviously, 
working for most people because (I think) they mostly have newer than 
mine nvidia cards. So maybe I should also just get the newer nvidia card 
and shut up, not sure.

Yuri



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