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

[Jason Henson]

On 03/15/05 22:10:27, Jean Lagarde wrote:
> 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.
>

What happens with just the gig stcik?  What happens when you switch the  
slots the sticks are in?  Are the sticks the sam brand?  Are the  
brands/brand supported? http://www.sis.com/support/support_memory_3.htm
Are you overclocking?

intersresting read on the sis memory controller
http://www.lostcircuits.com/motherboard/asus_p4s333/

I also find it hard to believe you have a bad mptable.  Maybe you could  
check for a new bios?  It is kind of funny if sis used the ms acpi  
tools and not intels for an intel system.  I say this because I have  
never heard of problems from the intel acpi tools, and ms is the only  
other set I know of.


> ============
> 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-@