amd64/87348: amd64+smp+startkde always crashing

D. J. Bernstein freebsd-d8749b97554608222e6dfa2fbc915a0b at box.cr.yp.to
Wed Oct 12 16:10:14 PDT 2005


>Number:         87348
>Category:       amd64
>Synopsis:       amd64+smp+startkde always crashing
>Confidential:   no
>Severity:       serious
>Priority:       high
>Responsible:    freebsd-amd64
>State:          open
>Quarter:        
>Keywords:       
>Date-Required:
>Class:          sw-bug
>Submitter-Id:   current-users
>Arrival-Date:   Wed Oct 12 23:10:13 GMT 2005
>Closed-Date:
>Last-Modified:
>Originator:     D. J. Bernstein
>Release:        5.4-RELEASE
>Organization:
University of Illinois at Chicago
>Environment:
FreeBSD dancer.math.uic.edu 5.4-RELEASE FreeBSD 5.4-RELEASE #2: Wed Oct 12 16:09:35 CDT 2005 root at dancer.math.uic.edu:/usr/obj/usr/src/sys/dancer  amd64

>Description:
Built an Athlon 64 X2 box; Asus A8V, 250GB SATA, Radeon VE (7000). Installed FreeBSD 5.4-RELEASE from the amd64 CDs. Modified kernel from GENERIC as follows: changed ident, add ``device sound'', add ``device "snd_via8233"'', add ``options SMP''.

Minor problem: machine wasn't pingable after a few days. Apparently fixed by debug.mpsafenet=1 in /boot/loader.conf; haven't tried to isolate the problem.

Major problem: startkde always freezes the machine. Caps Lock doesn't toggle keyboard lights; Ctrl-Alt-Backspace has no effect; only way to affect the machine, apparently, is to press the power button.

Removing SMP appears to eliminate the freeze, but I'd rather run Linux than throw away half of the CPU power. Haven't done serious stress tests, so I don't know whether this is tied to KDE, or to X, or to overlal load. Have reproduced on an identical Athlon 64 X2 box; could be a problem with the A8V etc., but clearly isn't a problem with assembly of this particular box.

This is a new non-critical machine; I'm willing to play with it a little bit. I could open it up to developers for testing, but if the video driver is crashing the machine then I'd be surprised if FreeBSD has adequate remote debugging facilities.

---D. J. Bernstein, Professor, Mathematics, Statistics, and Computer Science, University of Illinois at Chicago

>How-To-Repeat:
See above.

>Fix:
See above.

>Release-Note:
>Audit-Trail:
>Unformatted:


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