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Date:      Mon, 19 Oct 1998 15:25:00 -0700
From:      Mike Smith <mike@smith.net.au>
To:        sthaug@nethelp.no
Cc:        freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG, freebsd-hardware@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: Problems with Digital server with P-166 and Neptune chipset 
Message-ID:  <199810192225.PAA01755@dingo.cdrom.com>
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Mon, 19 Oct 1998 23:36:15 %2B0200." <17857.908832975@verdi.nethelp.no> 

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> The problems I see *may* be the fault of the PCI chipset. On
> http://www.freebsd.org/handbook/handbook138.html, it says:
> 
> Neptune:
> 
>     Can not run more than 2 bus master devices. Admitted Intel design
>     flaw. Workarounds include do not run more than 2 bus masters, special
>     hardware design to replace the PCI bus arbiter (appears on Intel
>     Altair board and several other Intel server group MB's). And of course
>     Intel's official answer, move to the Triton chip set, we ``fixed it
>     there''.
> 
> I don't know any more about the Neptune problem than what I've seen on
> this Web page. The actual behavior I see is sudden reboots without any
> apparent cause - and no messages in the system logs. The system *has*
> more than two bus master devices (21140 Ethernet card, two Buslogic
> Multimaster SCSI controllers, 7 SCSI disks, SCSI CDROM, SCSI tape).
> 
> On the other hand, Patrick Duffy's "PCI Chipsets" list says about the
> Neptune:
> 
> Rev. 1: (problems mentioned)
> 
> Rev. 2:  This chipset is in boards shipped by Intel to vendors as of
>          about mid August 1994.  It has no reported problems (and works
>          well in my system).
> 
> The system I have may be Rev. 2:
> 
> chip0: <Intel 82434NX (Neptune) PCI cache memory controller> rev 0x11 on pci0.0.0
> 
> (/sys/pcisupport.c lists rev 16 and 17 as Neptune - so my guess, without
> checking the Intel data sheet, is that I have a Neptune rev. 2 chipset.)
> 
> Any good hints on where I should start looking to find the cause of the
> sudden reboots?

Well, I'd start by going back to just 2 bus masters for starters.

> Oh yeah, the two Buslogic SCSI controllers appear in the kernel config
> file as ISA controllers:
> 
> controller      bt0     at isa? port ? cam irq ?
> controller      bt1     at isa? port ? cam irq ?
>
> but they are very definitely PCI controllers:

This may be a leftover from the way the old bt driver used to handle 
PCI instances.

-- 
\\  Sometimes you're ahead,       \\  Mike Smith
\\  sometimes you're behind.      \\  mike@smith.net.au
\\  The race is long, and in the  \\  msmith@freebsd.org
\\  end it's only with yourself.  \\  msmith@cdrom.com



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