From owner-freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Mar 30 22:32:53 2005 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 A391E16A4CE; Wed, 30 Mar 2005 22:32:53 +0000 (GMT) Received: from pooker.samsco.org (pooker.samsco.org [168.103.85.57]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 969AE43D49; Wed, 30 Mar 2005 22:32:50 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from scottl@samsco.org) Received: from [192.168.254.21] (rat.samsco.home [192.168.254.21]) (authenticated bits=0) by pooker.samsco.org (8.13.1/8.13.1) with ESMTP id j2UMadHg012726; Wed, 30 Mar 2005 15:36:39 -0700 (MST) (envelope-from scottl@samsco.org) Message-ID: <424B288D.80303@samsco.org> Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2005 15:30:37 -0700 From: Scott Long User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; FreeBSD amd64; en-US; rv:1.7.5) Gecko/20050321 X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: "Greg 'groggy' Lehey" References: <20050330222439.GU84137@wantadilla.lemis.com> In-Reply-To: <20050330222439.GU84137@wantadilla.lemis.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Spam-Status: No, score=-2.8 required=3.8 tests=ALL_TRUSTED autolearn=failed version=3.0.2 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.0.2 (2004-11-16) on pooker.samsco.org cc: FreeBSD Stable Users cc: FreeBSD-amd64@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Problems with AMD64 and 8 GB RAM? 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, 30 Mar 2005 22:32:53 -0000 Greg 'groggy' Lehey wrote: > I've recently acquired an AMD64 box (dual Opteron 242, SiS Master@-FAR > motherboard > (http://www.msi.com.tw/program/products/server/svr/pro_svr_detail.php?UID=484). > See below for more details). I find it very unstable running with 8 > GB memory, though 4 GB are not a problem. At first I thought it was > the onboard peripherals, but after disabling them it still persisted. > > What's unstable? I only once got it through the boot process. > Running a 5.3-RELEASE i386 kernel it panics, though I haven't > investigated the panic (yet), since I'm not interested in the i386 > kernel. The amd64 5.4-PRERELEASE kernel just hangs/freezes. When the > peripherals are enabled, it's after probing the onboard NIC (bge) and > before probing SATA (no drives present). I've done a verbose boot, of > course, but no additional information is present. The NIC is > recognized, and that's all. > > Without the peripherals, but with a 3Com 3c905 PCI NIC, it continues > beyond this point, but doesn't enable the NIC. I don't have dmesg > output for these attempts, so I can't produce the exact message, and I > suspect it's not important. It continues until trying to mount NFS > file systems, where it hangs for obvious reasons. Pressing ^C causes > the system to either panic (and be unable to dump because I don't have > that much swap) or just hang. > > None of these problems occur when I use 4 GB memory. About the only > strangeness, which seems to come from the BIOS, is that it recognizes > only 3.5 GB. If I put all DIMMS in, it recognizes the full 8 GB > memory. > > I realize that this isn't enough to diagnose the problem. The reason > for this message now is to ask: > > 1. Has anybody else seen this problem? > 2. Has anybody else used this hardware configuration and *not* seen > this problem? > 3. Where should I look next? > > I'm attaching the (non-verbose) dmesg from a successful boot. > > Greg > -- > See complete headers for address and phone numbers. > 5.3-RELEASE has a lot of problems with >4GB due to busdma issues. Those should no longer be an issue in RELENG_5, including 5.4-PRE. You'll need to dig in and provide some more details, I guess. I have an HDAMA dual Opteron system that behaves fine now with 8GB of RAM, so your problem might lie with particular hardware and/or drivers. Scott