Subject: Re: Intresting 486 wierdness....
To: Andrew Gillham <gillham@vaultron.com>
From: Matt London <netbsd@knm.yi.org>
List: port-i386
Date: 10/24/2001 22:27:52
Hi,

On Wed, 24 Oct 2001, Andrew Gillham wrote:
> On Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 03:33:48PM +0100, Matt London wrote:
> > Hi guys,
> >   I rebuilt an old 486 server of mine (I think it's an acer, but there
> > aren't any obvious markings). Now, this box ran dos+win3.1 for years, and
> > it also ran linux 1.2.13 without to much problem from what I recall. Tho,
> > 2.0.x and some early 2.2 had issues (Bus Error IIRC).
> >   It's an EISA+VLB mobo, 48M RAM, onboard dual AIC-7770 SCSI, IDE, floppy,
> > serial and parallel. I figured I'd put NetBSD on there (I'm already
> > running NetBSD on my VAXen and sparcs) BUT...
> 
> I would suggest going into the bios and resetting everything to "default"
> if it has that option. (e.g. "Load Failsafe Settings" or something)
> Also, disabling the external L2 cache and trying again might help identify
> if it is a hardware issue or not.

Did that - man is this machine sloooooow without any cache or shadow
RAM. No difference - still panics in ffs :&/

> If you have some marginal cache or other hardware this might be triggered
> by the "more intense" use that a NetBSD kernel will give it.  Compared to
> running BIOS code under DOS/Win31, the NetBSD kernel is giving the hardware
> a workout. :)

I just installed freebsd as a test - it's recompiling the kernel as we
speak, which I think should be giving any hardware in the box a good
workout. Looks like an issue with netbsd :&/

That's just annoying, cause I'd rather have netbsd on here :&)

-- Matt

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