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Date:      Wed, 23 Aug 2000 07:43:01 -0700 (PDT)
From:      David Wolfskill <dhw@whistle.com>
To:        freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG, strange@unicon.ru
Subject:   Re: SMP problems (was: How can I obtain -stable for previous date)
Message-ID:  <200008231443.HAA35551@pau-amma.whistle.com>
In-Reply-To: <200008231019.RAA02918@mix.unicon.ru>

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>Date: Wed, 23 Aug 2000 17:19:36 +0700 (NSS)
>From: strange@unicon.ru

>It seems to me, the problem is in SMP code, because
>in 1 CPU configuration with the same kernel all works fine.
>And when 2 CPU is installed, simple make -j4 buildworld
>lock the system after little period of time...
>Unfortunatelly I cant find what changes was made in smp stuff...

You may have other information (possibly some that I edited out;
possibly information you didn't state) that supports the idea that there
may be a problem in FreeBSD's SMP code, but what you cite above does not
(in and of itself) demonstrate that at all.

As a case in point, when Doug Ambrisko was testing some machines
(Intellistation M Pros) for deployment here as desktop workstation/build
machines for the engineers, he found that running them with single CPUs
worked OK, but he was able to get the machine to fail in SMP mode.
(Sorry about the vagueness of the description, but it was a while ago,
and the salient point for me -- as the one who needed to deploy the
machines to my colleagues -- was that he was able to fix the problem.)

It turned out that once he upgraded the BIOS on the machine, he was
unable to reproduce that failure.  Since then, we have been deploying
the machines to the engineers, and have upgraded some to use 2 CPUs.  To
the best of my knowledge, we have had no SMP-related failures (and few
others, either -- none of which have FreeBSD implicated enough to
mention).

So I just make it part of the standard process I go through after
unpacking a box to ensure that the BIOS is updated.  That way, should we
want to add a CPU to some random Intellistation, we don't need to worry
about the problem.

Cheers,
david (yeah, we have openings -- who doesn't....)
-- 
David Wolfskill      dhw@whistle.com   UNIX System Administrator
Desk: 650/577-7158   TIE: 8/499-7158   Cell: 650/759-0823


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