In a discussion on the Windowmaker mailing list, I happened to talk
with a bunch of folks about problems I've been having that might be
cpu related. 

I'm curious whether the problems I'm having could have anything to do
with my cpu, a Cyrix 686-200+ (actually runs at 166Mhz I think) on an
Intel based VX board.  I also have 64 megs of ram, I suppose it might
be culpable as well.

Fairly frequently when I'm compiling programs, gcc will complain of a
'fatal signal 11' and stop compilation.  If I run it again, it usually
compiles the rest of the program just fine.

The other problem is that my computer freezes at least once every 1 to
8 days. When this happens (I've sort of associated it with Netscape,
but then again I'm always running Netscape and the other day it froze
when I was just running X and xdm, no apps yet) the screen just
freezes up and I can't switch virtual terminals or log in over
Ethernet or serial port. I always have to just reboot the computer.

And I never see the kernel debugger nor is there a core dump waiting
for me when I reboot. I just have to wait for it to mark the disks
clean and then its as if the crash never happened. 'last' does attempt
a valiant effort at determining the time of the crash.

Is it likely that my problems with stability are due to the Cyrix
processor? The reason I'm inclined to think that it might be the cpu
is that there was someone on the Windowmaker list who's experienced
the same wacky problems as I have (fatal signal 11, computer
instability) and also runs this Cyrix cpu.

Thanks for any help. I'd really like to find out what's going on
inside my box so that I can experience the same legendarily long
uptimes as all other NetBSD users.

-Zach Fine
czyz@u.washington.edu

PS. In case this helps anyone, here's the output of 'last' and
'dmesg':

jehosephat% last
czyz      ttyv0                     Thu Jun  4 10:13   still logged in
reboot    ~                         Thu Jun  4 10:11 
czyz      ttyv0                     Thu Jun  4 00:29 - crash  (09:41)
reboot    ~                         Thu Jun  4 00:29 
czyz      ttyv2                     Wed Jun  3 22:55 - crash  (01:34)
czyz      ttyp2    localhost        Wed Jun  3 22:50 - 22:53  (00:02)
czyz      ttyv0                     Tue Jun  2 12:31 - crash (1+11:58)
reboot    ~                         Tue Jun  2 12:31 

wtmp begins Tue Jun  2 12:31 
jehosephat% dmesg
Copyright (c) 1996, 1997 The NetBSD Foundation, Inc.  All rights
reserved.
Copyright (c) 1982, 1986, 1989, 1991, 1993
    The Regents of the University of California.  All rights reserved.

NetBSD 1.3.1 (JEHOV) #3: Sun May 10 17:17:49 PDT 1998
    czyz@jehosephat.thedaily.washington.edu:/usr/src/sys/arch/i386/compile/JEHOV
cpu0: Cyrix 6x86 (486-class)
real mem  = 66711552
avail mem = 63164416
using 839 buffers containing 3436544 bytes of memory
mainbus0 (root)
pci0 at mainbus0 bus 0: configuration mode 1
pchb0 at pci0 dev 0 function 0
pchb0: Intel 82437VX System Controller (TVX) (rev. 0x02)
pcib0 at pci0 dev 7 function 0
pcib0: Intel 82371SB PCI-to-ISA Bridge (PIIX3) (rev. 0x01)
Intel 82371SB IDE Interface (PIIX3) (IDE mass storage, interface 0x80)
at pci0 dev 7 function 1 not configured
S3 86C964-0 ("Vision964") (VGA prehistoric) at pci0 dev 8 function 0
not configured
ncr0 at pci0 dev 9 function 0: ncr 53c815 fast10 scsi
ncr0: interrupting at irq 11
ncr0: minsync=25, maxsync=206, maxoffs=8, 16 dwords burst, normal dma
fifo
ncr0: single-ended, open drain IRQ driver
ncr0: restart (scsi reset).
scsibus0 at ncr0: 8 targets
sd0 at scsibus0 targ 1 lun 0: <QUANTUM, FIREBALL_TM3200S, 300X> SCSI2
0/direct fixed
sd0: sd0(ncr0:1:0): 10.0 MB/s (100 ns, offset 8)
3067MB, 6810 cyl, 5 head, 184 sec, 512 bytes/sect x 6281856 sectors
ep1 at pci0 dev 10 function 0: 3Com 3C590 Ethernet
ep1: MAC address 00:a0:24:ba:5f:2d
ep1: 8KB byte-wide FIFO, 1:1 Rx:Tx split, utp default utp, autoselect
ep1: interrupting at irq 10
isa0 at pcib0
com0 at isa0 port 0x3f8-0x3ff irq 4: ns16550a, working fifo
com1 at isa0 port 0x2f8-0x2ff irq 3: ns16550a, working fifo
com2 at isa0 port 0x3e8-0x3ef irq 5: ns16550a, working fifo
com3 at isa0 port 0x2e8-0x2ef irq 9: ns16550a, working fifo
lpt0 at isa0 port 0x378-0x37b irq 7
lpt1 at isa0 port 0x278-0x27b: polled
wdc0 at isa0 port 0x1f0-0x1f7 irq 14
atapibus0 at wdc0
cd0 at atapibus0 drive 1: <CD-ROM  CDR_S1G, , 2.15> type 5 cdrom
removable
wd0 at wdc0 drive 0: <QUANTUM FIREBALL_TM3200A>
wd0: 3067MB, 6232 cyl, 16 head, 63 sec, 512 bytes/sec
wd0: using 16-sector 16-bit pio transfers, lba addressing
gus0 at isa0 port 0x220-0x22f irq 7 drq 1 drq2 6
 <Gravis UltraSound version 3.0, 1024KB DRAM, full-duplex, record drq
6>
audio0 at gus0
npx0 at isa0 port 0xf0-0xff: using exception 16
vt0 at isa0 port 0x60-0x6f irq 1
vt0: unknown s3, 80 col, color, 8 scr, mf2-kbd, [R3.32]
vt0: console
fdc0 at isa0 port 0x3f0-0x3f7 irq 6 drq 2
fd0 at fdc0 drive 0: 1.44MB, 80 cyl, 2 head, 18 sec
joy0 at isa0 port 0x201
joy0: joystick connected
biomask 4840 netmask 4c40 ttymask 4cc2
boot device: sd0
root on sd0a dumps on sd0b
root file system type: ffs
lpt0: out of paper
jehosephat%