In message <20060210040850.GA24644@kirkkit.kollasch.net>, "Jonathan A. Kollasch" writes:
[...]

>On Tue, Feb 07, 2006 at 08:57:36PM -0800, Jonathan Stone wrote:
>>=20
>> With any of a half-dozen multi-core amd64 nforce4 motherboards, from 3
>> or 4 different vendors, and NetBSD-3.0_RC3 through 3-stable, I haven't
>> been able t get a stable system with the hardware (nforce4 or add-in)
>> I need.  My experience is that NetBSD just plain doesn't work properly
>> with nforce4 and multiple CPUs.
>
>I've had a bad experience to the contrary. (described below)
>
>> To be fair, if one carefully uses only a subset of the nforce4
>> functionality with multiple CPU cores (either dual-core CPU or two
>> single-core CPUs in a dual-socket-940 board), you *can* find stable
>> subsets; but in my experience it's not worth trying.
>
>Sorta.

Hmm. I haven't tried that exact ACPI config with a dual-core processor.
I'll have to try 3-STABL3 or 3.0.

Besides the spontaneous-reboot-anytime-Xserver starts, I've also seen
hard hangs after missing interrupts on the nforce4 PATA; and hard
hangs with the nforce4 SATA.  Yet with a single-core CPU and the
"IOAPIC mode" disabled in the BIOS, I see none of those symptoms.

For the use I'd intended, losing nForce4 SATA makes the machine a non-starter.
I needed a 1.5TB raidframe set , and I can't sustain the required throughput
with 32-bit PCI add-in cards (not even considnering cost).

I'll have to try a dual-core CPU with the acpi interrupt fixup.


[... snip mail-index.netbsd.org URLs, Jonathan Kollasch's dmesg,
    to kernel-config diffs partly munged by quoted-printable encoding ... ]


>--- GENERIC     2005-09-15 18:33:43.000000000 -0500
>+++ DOLOMITE.UP 2006-01-10 14:09:07.000000000 -0600
>@@ -199,7 +199,7 @@
> # allocate a number of virtual screens at autoconfiguration time
> #options       WSDISPLAY_DEFAULTSCREENS=3D4
> # use a large software cursor that doesn't blink
>-options        PCDISPLAY_SOFTCURSOR
>+#options       PCDISPLAY_SOFTCURSOR
> # modify the screen type of the console; defaults to "80x25"
> #options       VGA_CONSOLE_SCREENTYPE=3D"\"80x24\""
> # work around a hardware bug that loaded fonts don't work; found on ATI ca=
>rds
>@@ -224,10 +224,10 @@
>
> #acpi0 at mainbus0
>
>-#acpi0                 at mainbus0
>+acpi0          at mainbus0
> #options       MPACPI
> #options       MPACPI_SCANPCI          # MPBIOS configures PCI roots
>-#options       ACPI_PCI_FIXUP          # PCI interrupt routing via ACPI
>+options        ACPI_PCI_FIXUP          # PCI interrupt routing via ACPI
> #options       ACPI_ACTIVATE_DEV       # If set, activate inactive devices
> #options       ACPICA_PEDANTIC         # force strict conformance to the S=
>pec.
> #options       ACPI_DISABLE_ON_POWEROFF        # disable acpi on power off
>@@ -816,7 +816,7 @@
> pseudo-device  gre             2       # generic L3 over IP tunnel
> pseudo-device  gif             4       # IPv[46] over IPv[46] tunnel (RFC1=
>933)
> #pseudo-device faith           1       # IPv[46] tcp relay translation i/f
>-#pseudo-device stf             1       # 6to4 IPv6 over IPv4 encapsulation
>+pseudo-device  stf             1       # 6to4 IPv6 over IPv4 encapsulation
> pseudo-device  vlan                    # IEEE 802.1q encapsulation
> pseudo-device  bridge                  # simple inter-network bridging
> #options       BRIDGE_IPF              # bridge uses IP/IPv6 pfil hooks too
>
>--- GENERIC.MP  2003-04-26 13:39:34.000000000 -0500
>+++ DOLOMITE    2005-09-26 17:50:12.000000000 -0500
>@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
> #      $NetBSD: GENERIC.MP,v 1.1 2003/04/26 18:39:34 fvdl Exp $
>
>-include "arch/amd64/conf/GENERIC"
>+include "arch/amd64/conf/DOLOMITE.UP"
>
> options        MULTIPROCESSOR
> options        COM_MPLOCK
>
>

>Even if I could have a amd64 box at home, I'm not sure I'd want one
>due to these various difficulties.

For SMP, ditto. But I have to say, I've been pretty satisfied with a
single-core amd64 nforce4/SLI, provided I turned off "APIC mode" in
the BIOS.  OTOH I'm using the cheapest PCI video card I could find;
I have high-speed network cards in the PCI-e x8/x16 (SLI) slots.