Today I started to check out some things on my VAXen and tried to
compile some C++ files and ran into IMHO serious problems:

It turned out that my 3100/76 running 1.2D doesn't swap at all!

When compiling a rather big file with lots of templates (according
to `top` the memory-use peaks at 20M) the machine just hangs.
`vmstat` ouput shows that "fre" is decreasing and reaching zero
without "po" (and "sr") becoming active. From that state the machine
never recovers. I've appended some sample output from `vmstat`.
`pstat -s` always displays 0% usage.

Surprisingly I could compile this file on my uVAX-II running 1.1A
with 16MB. Here swapping works, with `vmstat` one can see that "po"
and "sr" are really working.

Since I first suspected the SCSI driver for 3100 I changed my setup
into diskless with swap-on-nfs and monitored the nfs-traffic with
`tcpdump`. Swap was mounted properly but never accessed later on.
I got the same symptoms as before...

BTW: Is it possible to get swap via nfs but root on a local filesystem?
     If yes, how? (giving "sd0" and "le0" to the root/swap prompt
     resulted in "no swap", with both on "le0" it worked)

I've no clue why this 3100 doesn't swap. Since it behaves the same
with swap on sd0b and with swap on nfs, I'm now suspecting a general
problem with 1.2D. Is there anybody out there who's 1.2D (or 1.2x)
machine is swapping? What could be the reasons for the behaviour I get?
Is this problem specific to the VAX port? Or even specific to 3100s?

At the moment rather clueless and helpless...
Ciao,
        bertram

----------------------------------------------------------------------
 procs   memory     page                    disks   faults   cpu
 r b w   avm   fre  flt  re  pi  po  fr  sr s0 s1   in   sy  cs us sy id
 1 0 0  9858  2620  121   0   0   0   0   0  0  0    0    0   1 70 30  0
 1 0 0 10304  2095  105   0   0   0   0   0  0  0    0    0   2 68 32  0
 1 0 0 10127  1635   92   0  17   0   0   0  3  0    0    0   0 52 48  0
 1 0 0  8902  1276   72   0  21   0   0   0  3  0    0    0   1 54 46  0
 1 0 0  9815   903   75   0   1   0   0   0  0  0    0    0   1 71 29  0
 1 0 0 10306   486   84   0   0   0   0   0  0  0    0    0   1 65 35  0
 1 0 0 10542   246  714   0   0   0   0  17  0  0    0    0   1 39 61  0
 0 1 1 11239     0  372   0   0   0   0   0  0  0    0    0   1 20 80  0
 0 1 1 10694     0    0   0   0   0   0   0  0  0    0    0   0  0 100  0
 0 1 1  9970     0    0   0   0   0   0   0  0  0    0    0   0  0 100  0
 0 2 1 10515     0    1   0   0   0   0   0  0  0    0    0   1  0 100  0
 0 2 2  3399     0    0   0   0   0   0   0  0  0    0    0   1  0 100  0
 0 2 2  3399     0    0   0   0   0   0   0  0  0    0    0   0  0 100  0
 0 2 2  3399     0    0   0   0   0   0   0  0  0    0    0   0  0 100  0
 0 2 2  2854     0    0   0   0   0   0   0  0  0    0    0   0  0 100  0
 0 2 2  2130     0    0   0   0   0   0   0  0  0    0    0   0  0 100  0
 0 2 2  2130     0    0   0   0   0   0   0  0  0    0    0   0  0 100  0
 0 2 2  2854     0    0   0   0   0   0   0  0  0    0    0   1  0 100  0
 0 2 2  2854     0    0   0   0   0   0   0  0  0    0    0   0  0 100  0
 0 2 2  2854     0    0   0   0   0   0   0  0  0    0    0   0  0 100  0
 0 2 2  2854     0    0   0   0   0   0   0  0  0    0    0   0  0 100  0
 0 2 2  2130     0    0   0   0   0   0   0  0  0    0    0   0  0 100  0
 0 2 2  2130     0    0   0   0   0   0   0  0  0    0    0   0  0 100  0

 and so on for hours...