From owner-freebsd-hardware Thu Jan 23 09:22:12 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id JAA00699 for hardware-outgoing; Thu, 23 Jan 1997 09:22:12 -0800 (PST) Received: from po2.glue.umd.edu (root@po2.glue.umd.edu [129.2.128.45]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id JAA00690 for ; Thu, 23 Jan 1997 09:22:10 -0800 (PST) Received: from maryann.eng.umd.edu (maryann.eng.umd.edu [129.2.103.22]) by po2.glue.umd.edu (8.8.3/8.7.3) with ESMTP id MAA19897; Thu, 23 Jan 1997 12:22:00 -0500 (EST) Received: from localhost (chuckr@localhost) by maryann.eng.umd.edu (8.8.3/8.7.3) with SMTP id MAA25387; Thu, 23 Jan 1997 12:21:59 -0500 (EST) X-Authentication-Warning: maryann.eng.umd.edu: chuckr owned process doing -bs Date: Thu, 23 Jan 1997 12:21:59 -0500 (EST) From: Chuck Robey X-Sender: chuckr@maryann.eng.umd.edu To: Lars Jonas Olsson cc: hardware@freebsd.org Subject: Re: DX4-100 and sig-11's In-Reply-To: <199701231644.KAA17843@Jupiter.Mcs.Net> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-hardware@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk On Thu, 23 Jan 1997, Lars Jonas Olsson wrote: > I'm testing an older 486DX4-100 computer with FreeBSD. I've run85 > cycles of memtest-86 on it with no problem, but FreeBSD dies when > starting up (after npx probe). > The system has a PVI-486SP3 motherboard, Award BIOS, 3 PCI slots, SiS > 85C496 and 85X497 chipset and Intel DX4 A80486DX4100 SK051. The CPU > has a "TOUCH H9512" (CPU made before Dec. 1995) sticker on it. Any > ideas? The BIOS will let me choose write-thru or write-back for the > caches but no disable. I've tried both options. Point 1: There is NO program whatsoever, under any operating system, that does an even slightly reliable job of testing memory, so disregard the memtest results. Point 2: There IS a reliable memory test method, it involved using a hardware based memory tester. Most vendors of memory either have one or have access to one, so you have to ask them to do your testing. Point 3: Unix operating systems (as a class, not just FreeBSD) push memory much harder than any dos program, and will easily catch problems that are invisible to dos memory checkers. Point 4: Altho they _do_ catch memory problems, Unix OSs are miserable at telling you _where_ the problem is; see Point 2. The FreeBSD OS is solid, so if it's bombing, you have a hardware problem. I'm not saying it's memory, perhaps something else is set up wrong. ----------------------------+----------------------------------------------- Chuck Robey | Interests include any kind of voice or data chuckr@eng.umd.edu | communications topic, C programming, and Unix. 9120 Edmonston Ct #302 | Greenbelt, MD 20770 | I run Journey2 and picnic, both FreeBSD (301) 220-2114 | version 3.0 current -- and great FUN! ----------------------------+-----------------------------------------------