From owner-freebsd-smp Sat Oct 19 9: 7:29 2002 Delivered-To: freebsd-smp@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 82DB637B401 for ; Sat, 19 Oct 2002 09:07:27 -0700 (PDT) Received: from woolridge.ca (H10.C245.tor.velocet.net [216.138.245.10]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 7E1DF43E65 for ; Sat, 19 Oct 2002 09:07:26 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from dale-list-freebsd-smp@woolridge.org) Received: (qmail 22138 invoked by uid 1000); 19 Oct 2002 16:07:25 -0000 Date: Sat, 19 Oct 2002 12:07:25 -0400 From: Dale Woolridge To: freebsd-smp@FreeBSD.ORG Cc: Mark Lastdrager , Andrew MacIntyre Subject: Re: Abit SMP boards under FreeBSD (was Re: dnetc on xeon) Message-ID: <20021019160725.GE1727@woolridge.ca> Mail-Followup-To: freebsd-smp@FreeBSD.ORG, Mark Lastdrager , Andrew MacIntyre References: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.1i Sender: owner-freebsd-smp@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.org 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 To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-smp" in the body of the message