Date: Fri, 18 Nov 2005 22:15:03 -0500 From: John Baldwin <jhb@freebsd.org> To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Cc: Charles Sprickman <spork@fasttrackmonkey.com> Subject: Re: 4.8 "Alternate system clock has died" error Message-ID: <200511182215.04399.jhb@freebsd.org> In-Reply-To: <Pine.OSX.4.61.0511182152380.2298@gee5.nat.fasttrackmonkey.com> References: <Pine.OSX.4.61.0511182152380.2298@gee5.nat.fasttrackmonkey.com>
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On Friday 18 November 2005 10:05 pm, Charles Sprickman wrote: > Hello, > > I tried this query on -stable, hoping someone here can help me further > understand and troubleshoot this. > > Reference: > http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.os.freebsd.stable/32837 > > In short, top, ps report 0% CPU on all processes as of a few weeks ago. > "systat -vmstat" hands out the "Alternate system clock has died" error. > > Box is running 4.8-p24 and has been up 425 days. Nothing out of the > ordinary except for the above symptoms. In searching the various > lists/newsgroups, it seems that the other folks with this problem have > fixed it in various ways: > > -early 4.x users referenced a PR that was committed before 4.8 > -some 5.3 users reported this with unknown resolution/cause > -sending init a HUP was suggested (tried it, no luck) > -setting kern.timecounter.method: 1 (tried it, no luck) > -one user seemed to actually have a dead timer Actually, there was a patch that was committed in 5.4 and 6.0 for this issu= e. =20 You can see the diff here: http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/cvsweb.cgi/src/sys/i386/isa/clock.c.diff?r1=3D1.= 213&r2=3D1.214&f=3Dh That patch would probably backport to 4.x fairly easily. > The -stable poster had a warning that if the RTC is bad, the machine > likely won't come back up if I boot it. That has me very worried as this > box is very important (mail server). If it's a software glitch such as the ones fixed in the patch above, your b= ox=20 will come up after a reboot without a problem. > Can anyone help me determine if this is a hardware problem? If it is, I > really need to stretch the budget and dig up some new hardware to > transplant everything into. That is not very easy to tell. It's doubtful that it is a hardware problem= ,=20 but if it is, it would require a new motherboard to fix as the RTC is part = of=20 the southbridge which is rather firmly attached to your motherboard. :) =2D-=20 John Baldwin <jhb@FreeBSD.org> =A0<>< =A0http://www.FreeBSD.org/~jhb/ "Power Users Use the Power to Serve" =A0=3D =A0http://www.FreeBSD.org
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