Multiprocessor system VS one processor system

[Olaf Hoyer]

On Tue, 16 Mar 2004, Simon wrote:

>
> Sounds like a cool feature. What detects/monitors the CPUs to spot any problems
> and mark them offline at the next reboot? is this a feature of FreeBSD or motherboards
> you use? I have never heard of anything like this on Intel based servers, before.
>
Hi!

No, its a feature of a real "Server"-Mainboard.

Standard feature in real iron, meaning non-i386 based.

I hava @work lots of suns sitting around, that also get beaten and
(ab)used quite a lot, and then, we also have some share of defective
CPU's a year. But... the things an old 450 with 400 MHz CPUs and 20
HDD's stacked  will do
I/O-Wise, is not easily achievable with some modern dual-Xeon Server.

in Intel world, I rarely experienced flaky CPU, but these i386 boxes are
rarely loaded to the load a Solaris/Sparc box can take, in most cases
the Intel box simply runs out of I/O-possibilities.

I have some boxes here, that never go below 1000 procs simultaneously.
So a load of 10 or so is normal there. (Ok, they have more than 4 CPU,
though)


> PS: then again, I never had a CPU fail after it passed DOA, maybe I haven't gone
> through enough CPUs, yet.
Well, in i386 world, CPUs are mostly only going south when cooling is
bad, or you get some current spikes or so, with real iron, that is being
really beaten up, you have this more often.
But real iron also remains in production use for more that 3 years...



Just my 0.02 Euro on this
Olaf
-- 
Olaf Hoyer        ohoyer at gaff.hhhr.ision.net
Fuerchterliche Erlebniss geben zu raten,
ob der, welcher sie erlebt, nicht etwas Fuerchterliches ist.
(Nietzsche, Jenseits von Gut und Boese)