kern/52648: bonnie gives kernel panic in SMP but not in UNI on FBSD 5.0

[Stefan A. Deutscher]

Summary: 
========
kern/52648 should probably be closed as caused by flaky hardware (L2 cache)

Long version, for the record and for those who care:
====================================================

Hi folks,

  I finally did install WNT 4.0sp1 on this SMP box (got it for five
bucks on ebay, which is probably close to the real value of this piece
of public complain software).

Result: 

(i)  W/o L2 cache enabled, the 2 CPU configuration is as slow and as
     stable as FreeBSD. 

(ii) With L2 cache enabled, it died after about an hour of heavy
     beating: Since I couldn't quite compile a kernel on NT I ran four
     large atomic physics codes in parallel, overcomitting physical
     memory by a factor of 2 to 2.5, thus making sure that CPU, memory
     and disk subsystems get hit. To stay awake I added some additional
     Netscrape activity.

Funny thing is that inspite of a VM system and an appropriately sized
swap file the system wouldn't let my largest job execute. It requests
about 270 MB of memory, the box has "only" 192 MB installed. So I had to
line up a few smaller ones using 130 to 170 MB each. Trying to make sure
that it wasn't a WNT4sp1 specific problem, maybe tied to the crash, I
downloaded and installed ServicePack 6a. It blessed my humble effort
with a BSOD and decided to stay that way. Luckily, newfs is more
reliable than that and gave me back the disk space, ready to serve.

Cheers,
         Stefan


----- Forwarded message from "Stefan A. Deutscher" <sa.deutscher at tiscali.de> -----
> Date: Sat, 23 Aug 2003 14:19:54 +0000
> From: "Stefan A. Deutscher" <sa.deutscher at tiscali.de>
> To: Kris Kennaway <kris at obsecurity.org>
> X-Mailer: Mutt 0.94.15i
> Cc: freebsd-bugs at freebsd.org
> Subject: Re: kern/52648: bonnie gives kernel panic in SMP but not in UNI on
> 	FBSD 5.0
> 
> On Fri, Aug 15, 2003 at 08:40:29PM -0700, Kris Kennaway wrote:
> > The following reply was made to PR kern/52648; it has been noted by GNATS.
> > 
> > From: Kris Kennaway <kris at obsecurity.org>
> > To: bug-followup at FreeBSD.org
> > Cc:  
> > Subject: Re: kern/52648: bonnie gives kernel panic in SMP but not in UNI on FBSD 5.0
> > Date: Fri, 15 Aug 2003 20:39:35 -0700
> > 
> >  --QKdGvSO+nmPlgiQ/
> >  Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
> >  Content-Disposition: inline
> >  Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
> >  
> >  Adding to audit trail
> >  
> >  ----- Forwarded message from Kris Kennaway <kris at obsecurity.org> -----
> >  
> >  X-Original-To: kkenn at localhost
> >  Delivered-To: kkenn at localhost.obsecurity.org
> >  Delivered-To: kris at freebsd.org
> >  Date: Fri, 15 Aug 2003 20:34:57 -0700
> >  From: Kris Kennaway <kris at obsecurity.org>
> >  To: sad at mailaps.org
> >  Cc: Kris Kennaway <kris at FreeBSD.org>
> >  Subject: Re: kern/52648: bonnie gives kernel panic in SMP but not in UNI on=
> >   FBSD 5.0
> >  In-Reply-To: <20030720141625.A336 at tiscali.de>
> >  User-Agent: Mutt/1.4.1i
> >  X-UIDL: f30809b343ec601faab648fa8b5d173d
> >  X-Bogosity: No, tests=3Dbogofilter, spamicity=3D0.000000, version=3D0.13.7.2
> >  
> >  On Sun, Jul 20, 2003 at 02:16:26PM +0000, Stefan A. Deutscher wrote:
> >  
> >  > I couldn't tell - 5.1R does not even boot with an SMP kernel anymore.
> >  > It hangs hard where the second CPU should be launched, not even
> >  > Ctrl-Alt-Del do the trick to reboot the box. (This is with ACPI
> >  > disabled at install, but booting with it enabled does not change a
> >  > thing.)
> >  
> >  It looks like there is an incompatibility or bug with your hardware.
> >  Perhaps you could try a different BIOS revision.
> >  
> >  Have you tried booting other OSes on this system?
> >  
> >  Kris
> 
> Yes. DOS and Windoze 95 do boot, but not being SMP aware, this does not
> say more than FreeBSD booting and running fine with UNI kernels.
> 
> I tried to install RedHat 8.0 but it would hang already with blinking
> keyboard LEDs right at the beginning, and the distro CDs I have don't
> have anything to create modified boot floppies like in the old days of
> RH.
> 
> 
> Given that this box was built to run Windows NT SMP way back when, I did
> buy a copy of NT on ebay for a few bucks, but haven't received it yet.
> I'll report back once I know whether this works.
> 
> 
> Cheers, Stefan
> 
> 
> -- 
> ============================================================================
> Stefan A. Deutscher                     |  (+1-423-)   voice      fax
> The University of Tennessee, Knoxville  |  UTK  :     974-7838  974-7843
> Department of Physics and Astronomy     |  ORNL :     574-5897  574-1118
> 401, A. H. Nielsen Building             |  home :     522-7845  522-7845
> Knoxville, T.N. 37996-1200, USA         |  email:     sad at utk.edu
> ============================================================================

----- End forwarded message -----

-- 
============================================================================
Stefan A. Deutscher                     |  (+1-423-)   voice      fax
The University of Tennessee, Knoxville  |  UTK  :     974-7838  974-7843
Department of Physics and Astronomy     |  ORNL :     574-5897  574-1118
401, A. H. Nielsen Building             |  home :     522-7845  522-7845
Knoxville, T.N. 37996-1200, USA         |  email:     sad at utk.edu
============================================================================