Re: ICH9 & Core2 Duo - kernel crash

[Pavol Cvengros <pavol.cvengros@primeinteractive.net>]

Bill Davidsen wrote:
> Pavol Cvengros wrote:
> > Bill Davidsen wrote:
> > > Pavol Cvengros wrote:
> > > > On Thursday 06 December 2007 21:15:53 Bill Davidsen wrote:
> > > >  
> > > > > Pavol Cvengros wrote:
> > > > >  
> > > > > > Hello,
> > > > > >
> > > > > > I am trying LKML to get some help on one linux kernel related 
> > > > > > problem.
> > > > > > Lately we got a machine with new HW from Intel. CPU is Intel 
> > > > > > Core2 Duo
> > > > > > E6850 3GHz with 2GB of RAM. Motherboard is Intel DG33BU with G33 
> > > > > > chipset.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > After long fight with kernel crashes on different things, we 
> > > > > > figured out
> > > > > > that if the multicore is disabled in bios, everything is ok and 
> > > > > > machine
> > > > > > is running good. No kernel crashes no problems, but with one core 
> > > > > > only.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > This small table will maybe explain:
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Cores   -     kernel   -   state
> > > > > >    2  -   nonsmp or smp  - crash
> > > > > >    1  -  smp or nonsmp  - ok
> > > > > >
> > > > > > All crashes have been different (swaper, rcu, irq, init.....) or 
> > > > > > we just
> > > > > > got internal gcc compiler error while compiling kernel/glibc/.... 
> > > > > > and the
> > > > > > machine was frozen.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Please can somebody advise what to do to identify that problem more
> > > > > > precisely. (debug kernel options?)
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Our immpresion - ICH9 & ICH9R support in kernel is bad... sorry 
> > > > > > to say..
> > > > > >       
> > > > > I have seen unusual memory behavior under heavy load, in the cases 
> > > > > I saw
> > > > > it was heavy DMA load from multiple SCSI controllers, and one case 
> > > > > with
> > > > > FFT on the CPU and heavy network load with gigE. Have you run 
> > > > > memtest on
> > > > > this hardware? Just a thought, but I see people running Linux on that
> > > > > chipset, if not that particular board.
> > > > >
> > > > > A cheap test even if it shows nothing. Of course it could be a CPU 
> > > > > cache
> > > > > issue in that one CPU, although that's unlikely.
> > > > >     
> > > >
> > > > yes, memtest was running all his tests without problems. The wierd 
> > > > thing is that all kernel crashes we have seen were different (as 
> > > > stated in original mail)....
> > > >
> > > >   
> > > The problem with memtest, unless I underestimate it, is that it 
> > > doesn't use all core and siblings, so it doesn't quite load the 
> > > memory system the way regular usage would. Needless to say, if this 
> > > does turn out to be a memory loading issue I don't know of any tools 
> > > to really test it. I fall back on part swapping, but that only helps 
> > > if it's the memory DIMM itself.
> >
> > right now that machine has 2 x 1GB DDR2 - 800MHz.... do you think I 
> > should test the machine with only one DDR? (I hope to put there 4GB 
> > all together)
> Well, odd memory problems are rare, did you look for a BIOS update? It 
> could be that the chipset isn't being set properly, and would explain 
> why it might work differently with another BIOS. But if there's 
> nothing else to try, it won't hurt to see if it works differently with 
> only one DDR.
original BIOS and the latest BIOS tested, doesn't work.... I will try 
latest kernels and just one DDR

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