Skip site navigation (1)Skip section navigation (2)
Date:      Tue, 8 May 2001 01:35:56 +0100
From:      "Mark Hughes" <mark@dvdnews.co.uk>
To:        <freebsd-questions@freebsd.org>
Subject:   Panic on install - page fault syncing discs - 4.1-release
Message-ID:  <014701c0d756$d9d35940$0400a8c0@mark2>

next in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
Hello all,

Bit of a newbie question I guess, been using FreeBSD for a while as a mysql/php/apache
webserver and samba fileserver, without problems, but having just changed out the
motherboard (and a few other bits due to a nasty power spike or power suppy going crazy,
still not sure what) on the computer I use it on, I'm having "a few problems". I'm
attempting to re-install from a FreeBSD 4.1-release CDROM (would download and try
4.3-release but I only have a 56k modem net connection, and downloading the last one took
me 45 hours :-) ), and am having a number of problems.

Brief description of problem:
6.5GB ATA33 IBM HDD, on Biostar M7MIA mobo including the VIA IDE controller identified by
the boot process as a "VIA 82C686 ATA66 Controller". Full spec included below.

Hard drive partitioned as 4.5GB Win2K/FAT32 partition, rest empty awaiting a FreeBSD
install. I've checked out the hard drive with the IBM disk testing utility and all tests
passed fine (I've even tried doing a "low" level format on it using the IBM wipe utility,
to
no avail), also windows 2000 installed without problem.

Anyway, I have been booting from install CD, set up kernel as usual knocking out all the
unused hardware and sorting out any conflicts. Picked express setup, created a FreeBSD
partition, sliced it as per my requirements (100MB root, 260MB swap, 300MB /var, and the
rest for /usr), picked the minimal distribution (althoguh picking any of the others has
the same/similar effect), install begins. This is all much as I've done before with no
problems before the new motherboard & hard drive re-format.

At a seemingly random point while either extracting/installing the distribution, or while
the "Remaking all devices.. Please Wait!" message is on screen shortly thereafter, the
computer pauses for a fair time (probably around two to five minutes, not always the same
though) then displays the messages...

panic: page fault syncing discs... 374 374 374 374 374 374 (repeat 374 a total of 20
times)
giving up on 328 buffers
Uptime: (whatever)
Automatic reboot in 15 seconds....

I've a strong suspicion this is related to the hard drive controller, althoguh I've not
been able to find any problems reported anywhere around the net with it, so that
assumption could be wrong.

Also, on one occasion while trying to install, it did manage to complete the install, and
it rebooted successfully once, but after a few minutes of use I had a "read command
timeout" error, followed by a seemingly endless loop of the OS reseting the drive
controller then it failing again, reseting again, failing again, and so on, only solved by
a hard reset. On restarting FreeBSD wouldn't even boot, crashing out with a "BTX halted"
error and a load of hex (which I'm afraid I didn't think to note down, there was a lot of
it) and no error codes or messages aside from this.

I've included the full spec of the machine below.

I'm tearing my hair out here, and if anyone has any ideas or has seen something similar to
this before and can point me in the right direction, I'd be hugely grateful.

Hope I've included all the information possible here, but if not, please let me know and
i'll check it out.

Thanks,
Mark

Machine Spec:
Biostar M7MIA motherboard, using AMD760 north bridge and VIA KT133 (i think) south bridge
128MB DDR PC2100 memory (under-clocked at 100/200MHz to match FSB of processor)
AMD Duron 750MHz CPU
IBM Deskstar 6.5GB ATA33 Hard Disk Drive (partitioned as 4.5GB FAT32 Win2K, rest FreeBSD)
SMC 1211TX-WL 10/100 WOL NIC
ATI Radeon VE 32MB DDR Graphics
12x ARTEC DVDROM
3.5" floppy drive, 1.44MB (wow)





To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org
with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message




Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?014701c0d756$d9d35940$0400a8c0>