updated to 7.1 via cvs source, PAE kernel. server unstable

[brad davison]

Hi all,
 
Hopefully someone can shed some light on my problem.  Over the weekend, we upgraded our mailserver that was running like a champ w/ FBSD 7.0 and a PAE kernel (8gb RAM).
 
I didn't use the freebsd-update program, because I read that if you're not using a GENERIC kernel, it wont work.
 
I had changed the standard-supfile like that had RELENG_7_0 to RELENG_7_1 and ran cvsup.
 
I followed the handbook for cleaning out the /usr/src/obj directory, rebuilt the world and kernel via:
 
# cd /usr/src# make buildworld# make buildkernel KERNCONF=PAE# make installkernel KERNCONF=PAE
 
then I rebooted into single user mode and performed the:
 
# mount -a -t ufs# mergemaster -p# cd /usr/src# make installworld# mergemaster
 
When I did the mergemaster, I kept my master.password, hosts, passwd, rc.conf, and make.conf.  But for the most part, I 'i' installed the new files.
 
Since then, we have had severe server instability after a few hours.  The server completely locks up requiring a hard boot, then the fsck_ufs runs for a while.  This is our production mail server, and we've been down off and on for 2 days.
 
I'm in the process of building a replacement and getting back online with 7.0 and a GENERIC kernel, but what on Earth could have gone on?  Did I do something wrong with using a PAE kernel on 7.1?
 
I'm in single-user mode again running 'fsck -y' and there are TONS of errors on the /usr volume.
 
The /var/log/messages just shows that the server was restarted, and I'm just wondering where to start.
 
 

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