Re: 7.0/6.2, 4GB and AHC

On Wed, July 18, 2007 15:33, Tony Holmes wrote:
> I had a very interesting couple of days trying to figure out why
> 6.2-STABLE
> and 7.0-CURRENT, both amd64,  were giving me random hangs, panics etc.
>
> My system:
>
> Asus M2NPV-VM
> 4GB Ram
> 2 x Adaptec 19160 controllers
> 14 x 33GB Seagate 10k rpm scsi in a disk shelf (2 channel)
> 2 x 80GB Seagate SATA (geom mirror, system disks)

I've got an ASUS M2N (latest bios) with an Adaptec 39320D SCSI controller.
I get similair issues like mangled entries, unable to mount root after
reboot.

Currently I installed I386 version which solved all of my problems.

I haven't removed the 2x1GB module yet, so that's something to check.
On my emails (see
http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-current/2007-July/thread.html)
I havent had much response yet. If more information is required I am happy
to provide.

Patrick

>
> I had the system installed with 6.2 and upgraded to 7.0- (for the new nfe
> driver for the onboard NIC) and added the Adaptecs and disk. I began to
> play
> with geom to set them up as a RAID 10 system for a database. Same
> configuration
> on FreeBSD, solaris and other systems resulted in blazing fast
> performance.
>
> Set up the disks, fired up a basic bonnie test and... chug chug and
> eventual
> random panic. Okay, maybe I messed up the geom config since I was
> tinkering
> around. Reboot, wait for sync to finish.... 20 hours later it was done -
> way
> too slow. Checked termination, cables, power, etc. All good.
>
> Fire up bonnie... first iteration showed approx 8MBps write approx 10MBps
> read
> was horrendous. Decided to attempt a fresh reinstall.
>
> Load up 6.2R amd64 cd - panic on startup just after SCSI probe delay.
> Tried
> once more and same thing. Okay, try 7.0 amd64.
>
> Divide by 0 error right after SCSI probe - and that's when the thought
> struck
> me - 4GB ram...
>
> Pulled out 2GB and viola, 7.0 installed easily. Configured the Raid 10 and
> got
> the nice 275MBps read and 150MBps (ballpark) benchmark numbers I was
> expecting.
>
> I know that amd64 supports 4gb+ (I have 2 others with SATA only that are
> running flawlessly).
>
> So I am attempting to determine the cause of the failures.
>
> The adaptecs are 32bit with older bios (2.57 and 3.10). They are in the 2
> 32bit pci slots of the M2NPV motherboard.
>
> I would have thought FreeBSD would have knocked a memory hole in the
> 3.5-4gb
> range to accomodate the device mappings.
>
> Does anyone have any explanations/pointers (I did search and attempt to
> RTFM
> with not much luck) about this?
>
> --
> Tony Holmes
>
> Ph: (416) 993-1219
>
> Founder and Senior Systems Architect
> Crosswinds Internet Communications Inc.
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