Date: Sat, 19 Oct 2002 12:07:25 -0400 From: Dale Woolridge <dale-list-freebsd-smp@woolridge.org> To: freebsd-smp@FreeBSD.ORG Cc: Mark Lastdrager <mark.lastdrager@pine.nl>, Andrew MacIntyre <andymac@bullseye.apana.org.au> Subject: Re: Abit SMP boards under FreeBSD (was Re: dnetc on xeon) Message-ID: <20021019160725.GE1727@woolridge.ca> In-Reply-To: <JMENLOHFMAEDBJGCKPMFKEBFCAAA.mark.lastdrager@pine.nl> References: <Pine.OS2.4.32.0210112110160.93-100000@tenring.andymac.org> <JMENLOHFMAEDBJGCKPMFKEBFCAAA.mark.lastdrager@pine.nl>
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On 13-Oct-2002 21:21 Mark Lastdrager wrote:
| > > I believe the Abit VP6 and BP6 are quite similar and the
| > chipset runs
| > > very hot when in SMP mode, so since its not a proper
| > server board you
| > > might want to invest in some active cooling for your
| > chipset (usually
| > > just has a green heat sink on it).
| >
| > I think the VP6 uses the VIA [56]94 chipset, whereas the
| > BP6 uses the
| > Intel 440BX chipset - 2 very different animals.
| >
| > I remember some mail about problems with SMP with that VIA
| > chipset, which
| > I kept for a while but deleted only recently.
|
| I've seen a lot of VP6 boards die, including the one in my workstation
| at home. If you want to use the VP6, get yourself at least a decent
| power supply cause the VP6 seems to be quite tricky.
|
| By the way, FreeBSD runs perfectly on it ;-)
Personally, I'm using a Koolance case w/ 300W SPI power supply and haven't
even tried overclocking my box. I used the extra cooling unit on the
motherboard, so I really don't think there's a cooling problem. Some
time ago (4.3/4.4) I was able to actually boot with SMP, although it was
somewhat unstable (I submitted an appropriate PR). Now, I can't even get
it to boot in SMP (dies during rc).
I believe it when you say FreeBSD runs perfectly on the VP6, but I'm at
a point where (I think) I need to either replace the board or the CPUs.
I would hate to get a new board only to find I really needed new CPUs.
I'm really suspicious of the board, and don't know enough to understand
the signifance of why disabling the L2 cache suddenly made my UP system
stable. If anyone has any helpful suggestions, either about the L2 cache,
or how to distinguish a board problem from a CPU problem, I'd appreciate
hearing them very much. In the meantime, I'll probably try swapping my
CPUs just to see what happens. A friend suggested popping out one of the
CPUs and enabling the L2 cache again; anyone else think this might be a
fruitful effort?
thanks.
--
-Dale
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