Subject: Re: random core dumps
To: Karl Hakimian <hakimian@eecs.wsu.edu>
From: David Jones <dej@achilles.net>
List: port-sparc
Date: 11/19/1995 08:49:48
> I now have a new problem. Either my hardware is really flaky, or netbsd
> does not like my setup. I get a lot of random core dumps. Sometime they
> occur during boot sometime things run perfectly for 15 minutes or so.
> Once a particular program starts to core dump, it will not work again
> until I reboot.

> If I stay in single user mode, I don't seem to have the problem. If I am
> in single user mode for a long time, when I switch to multi user mode I
> am more likely to core dump immediately.
 
Ditto.

I managed to install the entire Sparc distribution without a hitch.  When
I try to build my own kernel, I get random kernel panics and user-level
core dumps.

Oh, sparc gurus: how reliable is NFS swapping?  I am netbooting off a
NetBSD/Amiga NFS server.

BTW, I am doing this because the PIO si driver has a few glitches in it,
one of which damaged a filesystem (I didn't use "trashed" cuz fsck fixed
it, but...)

> My hardware is a sparc 1 with 8 Megs of memory. uname -a under netbsd
> produces
> 
> NetBSD fess 1.1_ALPHA NetBSD 1.1_ALPHA (GENERIC_SCSI3) #4: Wed Nov  8 22:25:32 MET 1995     pk@neon:/usr/src1/sys/arch/sparc/compile/GENERIC_SCSI3 sparc
> 
> Does anyone have any ideas on what I should try?

I re-ran the diagnostics including memory test.  The memory is good, even
after being powered up for 3 hours, so no overheat problem.