5.3-release fine with 512MB RAM, reboots at times with 1.5GB (but no panic)

[Jean Lagarde]

I have been troubleshooting reboots over the last weekend, I think I 
might have enough clues now to get some useful hints from an expert.

FreeBSD 5.3-release (see dmesg below for details)

The problem seems to be with trying to run with 1.5GB vice 512MB of RAM. 
The system has not had problems so far when I only leave the 512MB stick 
in. When I add the 1GB stick the system will reboot at specific times, 
for example, while trying to launch KDE3 or trying to make OpenOffice 
(always reboots at "Extracting for openoffice-1.1.2-1"). I do not see 
any panic in the messages log, the system just silently reboots.

I initially installed FreeBSD with only the 512MB stick in.

The memory itself seems fine; memtest86 detects no errors.

At boot time all the memory is detected:

real memory  = 1610547200 (1535 MB)
avail memory = 1568432128 (1495 MB)

Running "memtest all" only seems to find 512MB to use. It evidently 
makes no assumption about how much memory is there, starting by trying 
to malloc 4GB and reducing the amount gradually until it finally 
successfully mallocs 512 MB and eventually manages to lock 413 MB 
(failed due to "insufficient resources" above that). The tests on the 
413 MB do pass.

I have rebuilt the kernel with VM_KMEM_SIZE_MAX=419430400 as suggested 
in the FAQ. No change.

Would setting MAXMEM to 1572864 help? I am not sure since the correct 
amount is reported by FreeBSD at boot, and right now trying to make the 
kernel with that option seems to be another case that reboots the 
machine (i.e. the make process itself reboots the machine) so I have not 
tried it yet (guess I would have to remove the 1GB  stick to make the 
new kernel and then put it back to try it out).

Thank you for any help.

============
dmesg
============

FreeBSD 5.3-RELEASE #1: Sun Mar 13 20:01:36 PST 2005
    xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx:/usr/src/sys/i386/compile/KERNEL_JEAN
Timecounter "i8254" frequency 1193182 Hz quality 0
CPU: Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 2.20GHz (2205.01-MHz 686-class CPU)
  Origin = "GenuineIntel"  Id = 0xf24  Stepping = 4
  
Features=0x3febfbff<FPU,VME,DE,PSE,TSC,MSR,PAE,MCE,CX8,APIC,SEP,MTRR,PGE,MCA,C
MOV,PAT,PSE36,CLFLUSH,DTS,ACPI,MMX,FXSR,SSE,SSE2,SS,HTT,TM>
real memory  = 1610547200 (1535 MB)
avail memory = 1568432128 (1495 MB)
mptable_probe: MP Config Table has bad signature: .\M^K\M-@
npx0: [FAST]
npx0: <math processor> on motherboard
npx0: INT 16 interface
acpi0: <SOYO AWRDACPI> on motherboard
acpi0: Power Button (fixed)
Timecounter "ACPI-fast" frequency 3579545 Hz quality 1000
acpi_timer0: <24-bit timer at 3.579545MHz> port 0x1008-0x100b on acpi0
cpu0: <ACPI CPU (3 Cx states)> on acpi0
acpi_tz0: <Thermal Zone> on acpi0
acpi_button0: <Power Button> on acpi0
acpi_button1: <Sleep Button> on acpi0
pcib0: <ACPI Host-PCI bridge> port 
0x1080-0x10ff,0x1000-0x107f,0x480-0x48f,0xcf8
-0xcff on acpi0
pci0: <ACPI PCI bus> on pcib0
agp0: <SiS 645 host to AGP bridge> mem 0xe0000000-0xe3ffffff at device 
0.0 on pc
i0
pcib1: <PCI-PCI bridge> at device 1.0 on pci0
pci1: <PCI bus> on pcib1
isab0: <PCI-ISA bridge> at device 2.0 on pci0
isa0: <ISA bus> on isab0
ohci0: <SiS 5571 USB controller> mem 0xe7000000-0xe7000fff irq 5 at 
device 2.2 o
n pci0
ohci0: [GIANT-LOCKED]
usb0: OHCI version 1.0, legacy support
usb0: <SiS 5571 USB controller> on ohci0
usb0: USB revision 1.0
uhub0: SiS OHCI root hub, class 9/0, rev 1.00/1.00, addr 1
uhub0: 3 ports with 3 removable, self powered
ohci1: <SiS 5571 USB controller> mem 0xe7001000-0xe7001fff irq 12 at 
device 2.3
on pci0
ohci1: [GIANT-LOCKED]
usb1: OHCI version 1.0, legacy support
usb1: <SiS 5571 USB controller> on ohci1
usb1: USB revision 1.0
uhub1: SiS OHCI root hub, class 9/0, rev 1.00/1.00, addr 1
uhub1: 3 ports with 3 removable, self powered
atapci0: <SiS 961 UDMA100 controller> port 
0xf000-0xf00f,0x376,0x170-0x177,0x3f6
,0x1f0-0x1f7 at device 2.5 on pci0
ata0: channel #0 on atapci0
ata1: channel #1 on atapci0
sis0: <SiS 900 10/100BaseTX> port 0xe000-0xe0ff mem 
0xe7002000-0xe7002fff irq 11
 at device 3.0 on pci0
miibus0: <MII bus> on sis0
ukphy0: <Generic IEEE 802.3u media interface> on miibus0
ukphy0:  10baseT, 10baseT-FDX, 100baseTX, 100baseTX-FDX, auto
sis0: Ethernet address: 00:50:2c:04:6c:0b
pci0: <display, VGA> at device 10.0 (no driver attached)
pci0: <multimedia, audio> at device 14.0 (no driver attached)
sio0: <16550A-compatible COM port> port 0x3f8-0x3ff irq 4 flags 0x10 on 
acpi0
sio0: type 16550A
atkbdc0: <Keyboard controller (i8042)> port 0x64,0x60 irq 1 on acpi0
atkbd0: <AT Keyboard> irq 1 on atkbdc0
kbd0 at atkbd0
atkbd0: [GIANT-LOCKED]
orm0: <ISA Option ROM> at iomem 0xc0000-0xc7fff on isa0
pmtimer0 on isa0
ppc0: parallel port not found.
sc0: <System console> at flags 0x100 on isa0
sc0: VGA <16 virtual consoles, flags=0x300>
sio1: configured irq 3 not in bitmap of probed irqs 0
sio1: port may not be enabled
vga0: <Generic ISA VGA> at port 0x3c0-0x3df iomem 0xa0000-0xbffff on isa0
Timecounter "TSC" frequency 2205013308 Hz quality 800
Timecounters tick every 10.000 msec
ad0: 39216MB <QUANTUM FIREBALLP AS40.0/A1Y.1300> [79677/16/63] at 
ata0-master UD
MA100
acd0: DVDROM <Pioneer DVD-ROM ATAPIModel DVD-106S 0122/E1.22> at 
ata0-slave UDMA
66
Mounting root from ufs:/dev/ad0s1a