Disable HTT on Serverworks GC-HE chipset
Kenneth D. Merry
ken at freebsd.org
Sun Mar 21 18:32:37 PST 2004
[ resend from my subscribed address, sorry for the duplicate... ]
On Sun, Mar 21, 2004 at 14:38:04 -0500, Ketrien I. Saihr-Kesenchedra wrote:
> At 09:02 AM 3/20/2004, you wrote:
> >Hi Scott,
> >I have tried without HTT because someone on #bsdcode told me
> >to do so (ket_). Maybe you know who he is :-) Not all revisions
> >of the chipset seem to be buggy so far, but rev. 0 is for sure.
>
> Hi everyone. Yes, I'm here. :) Been a bit busy, haven't had time to toss
> in my $0.02. The issues I've seen are strictly limited to the GC-HE when
> HTT is enabled, though I have had issues with other areas on some boards.
> (I won't bore you with the details.) I've heard of and seen them reproduced
> on Linux (2.4.x and 2.6.x) and Windows as well, so it's not just FreeBSD.
>
> >Serversboards with this chipset are:
> >- Dell PowerEdge 2650
> >- IBM xSeries
> >- Supermicro E7500
>
> The E7500 is actually an Intel E7500 chipset. If there are HTT issues with
> the E7500, those are more likely operating system related. As far as I can
> tell, Supermicro doesn't currently offer any Serverworks boards. Tyan, on
> the other hand, has the Thunder GC-HE. The four-way Xeon Dells are also
> Serverworks, but I can't recall the model numbers offhand.
FWIW, SuperMicro does still sell Serverworks boards, it just isn't quite
as obvious after their web site redesign:
http://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/Xeon/?typ=srvr
I've got a number of X5DL8-GG (GC-LE chipset) motherboards at work, they
work fine with FreeBSD and Linux.
> >While using google I found the GC-LE chipsets seems to have problems
> >with write-coalescing:
>
> As I told Martin on IRC, I'm personally not sure on this one. It wouldn't
> surprise me, but I haven't had any issues with the GC-LE's personally. I
> wish I could offer some suggestions, but I really don't have enough
> experience with the GC-HE's to know what's going on. However, I know the
> typical GC-HE + HTT symptoms on Linux are excessive context switching
> (>250,000/sec) followed by semi-random panics. Windows is usually a sudden
> drop in performance, which requires a reboot to correct - sometimes the
> drivers can work around this apparently. Also random BSODs on occasion, but
> again, usually without drivers.
I haven't had any problmes with the GC-LE either, although it may be I've
just never run into the problem.
Ken
--
Kenneth Merry
ken at FreeBSD.ORG
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