From owner-freebsd-hardware Mon Dec 16 14:20:56 1996 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.4/8.8.4) id OAA08472 for hardware-outgoing; Mon, 16 Dec 1996 14:20:56 -0800 (PST) Received: from persprog.com (persprog.com [204.215.255.203]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.4/8.8.4) with ESMTP id OAA08463 for ; Mon, 16 Dec 1996 14:20:51 -0800 (PST) Received: by persprog.com (8.7.5/4.10) id QAA15078; Mon, 16 Dec 1996 16:58:47 -0500 Received: from dasa(192.2.2.199) by cerberus.ppi.com via smap (V1.3) id smasf4692; Mon Dec 16 16:55:48 1996 Received: from DASA/SpoolDir by dasa.ppi.com (Mercury 1.21); 16 Dec 96 16:56:53 +0500 Received: from SpoolDir by DASA (Mercury 1.30); 16 Dec 96 14:38:48 +0500 From: "David Alderman" Organization: Personalized Programming, Inc To: "C. Stephen Gunn" , hardware@freefall.freebsd.org Date: Mon, 16 Dec 1996 14:38:39 +0500 Subject: Re: QuickTech P55TU Motherboard Problems Priority: normal X-mailer: Pegasus Mail for Windows (v2.42a) Message-ID: <55CD944127F@dasa.ppi.com> Sender: owner-hardware@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > From: "C. Stephen Gunn" > Are there any known problems with the IWill/QuickTech P55TU motherboard > and FreeBSD 2.1.6-RELEASE. I seem to be crashing a good bit, especially if > I put a significant load on the machine. Here's the config, in case > you're interested. > > - Quicktech P55TU Motherboard using Regular SCSI-2 > - Cyrix 686 P133+ > - 3 IBM SCSI-2 Drives, two striped using ccd > - 64Mb of 60NS EDO Ram > - SMC EtherPower 10/100 (Tulip Based) > > I suspect the RAM of being flakey, but have slowed down the cache > timings, and the RAM timing to 70ns to no avail. (the crashes get more > infrequent, but they still happen). > > You might want to suspect your motherboard. If this is a well known brand that I just don't know about, then maybe it's fine, but off-brand motherboards can cause all kinds of flakey timing problems that are very hard to nail down, even if they use the same chipset as a better designed board. If you look on an Asus or other reputable manufacturer, you will see "wavy traces" on some lines to correct for small timing errors. The quality of the BIOS is generally better as well. With a Cyrix processor in particular, the quality of the motherboard is a critical issue since the Cyrix seems to be more sensitive to board timings. I am not saying your board is the culprit - but if they are a small manufacturer the possibility of board problems should not be discounted. Good luck! ====================================== When philosophy conflicts with reality, choose reality. Dave Alderman -- dave@persprog.com ======================================