Re: AMD 64 Stability on Asus A8v Deluxe
Matthias Wenthe schrieb:
Jean-Luc Coulon (f5ibh) wrote:
1) kernel compilation test with the following script:
#!/bin/tcsh
# ramtest
#
make ARCH=i386 bzImage
foreach i (0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9)
foreach j (0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9)
foreach k (0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9)
( make clean;make ARCH=i386 bzImage > log."$i"$j$k ) >&
log.err."$i"$j$k
end
end
end
I must end up with 1000 identical Logfiles
Which RAM parameters do you use?
With the same board and Corsair RAM (given for 2-3-3-6 for P4 and
2.5-3-3-6 for athlon64), I was working in 32bit with 2 instead of
2.5 for the CAS, but I had to set it to 2.5 in 64 bit.
Maybe you have to relax a bit your timings?
I've corsair DDR in dual channel
I've left the burst to its highest value
I use 2.5-3-3-6-1T
2.5 is CAS
3 is tRCD
3 is tRP
6 is tRAS
1T command rate (Disabled for 1T, Enabled for 2T)
I have tried 2x 1GByte Infineon CL2.5 DDR 400 without success, then I
switched to 4 x takeMS PC3200 CL3 which used
to run in single Athlon 2000+ Cube PCs for long without a problem.
I took your advice and made the following settings:
3-4-4-8-1T
1T would not even boot so ich switched here to AUTO and had
3 for CAS 4 for tRCD
4 for tRP
8 for tRAS
but, alas, the result is as devastating as ever, i/o tar test and
kernel compile test runs fine
with kernel 2.6.8 686, when I switch to 2.6.11 amd64 k8 it crashes the
machine within 10 minutes.
....
As mentioned earlier I am waiting for a delivery of 4 x 512 Kingston
Value RAM from the Asus manual's compatibility list.
If that failes too I have to assume that the board is defect. But can
a board be defect in a way that the k8 64 bit kernel crashes and the
686 32 bit kernel works properly?
Seems very strange to me.
Finally I received 4x 512 MB Kingston VR (KVR400X64C3A/512) and so I changed the RAM a 2nd time. Remember at first I had 2x 1GByte Infineon
and then 4x512 MB takeMS, both produced segfaults during kernel compilation and kernel panics during i/o challenge tests, esp. with 64 bit kernels both in pure amd-64 installations and in mixed mode, i.e. sarge with k8 kernel. In both cases the RAM tested OK in single memory module configuration in other motherboards with Memtest86.
What can I say: I installed the new memory, set all BIOS memory switches
to AUTO, ran my test for about 24 hours now and so far the system runs like a charm without any errors. I would not even go so far as to speculate that the first two memory sets were defect, I think they were just not 100% compatible with my motherboard. Interestingly enough the 64 bit environment seems to be more sensitive to memory timing problems then the 32 bit one.
My suggestion for purchasing new hardware can now only be:
If you made the decision for the board goto to the vendor's
homepage, download the manual and look for a memory compatibility list
that has been thoroughly tested by the vendor, e.g. in Asus boards this is called the "qualified vendor list". Then goto your favourite online shop and search for this very type of memory. Do not go for any
module with a similar type code. And do not trust the sales personal's
statements ("It should work"). See in my case, I spent more then two weeks of testing with 3 kinds of memory modules which roughly belonged all to the same standard (DDR 400, PC 3200, CAL3, non ECC).
Thanks again to Jean-Luc for the hint to switch from BIOS setting
"auto overclocking" to manual settings. The "auto overclocking" stopped
booting in one out of 10 cases with a message of the kind "auto overclocking failed, press F1 to resume". In a data processing center
far away from you where this machine is going to serve as a mail host this can be quite disturbing after a reboot command.
The only thing that seemes a bit sad to me now is that there are still no amd64 security updates available, so I think I have to send away the machine with sarge and amd64-k8 kernel. Seeing the fact, that a well arranged mailserver installation can go for the next two years, it will probably have to be 32bit sarge (the data processing center is 550 km away and once running smoothly I guess I will not switch the OS so soon). But maybe the next server update will be with amd-64 linux.
Thanks to all of you for good advice.
Best regard
Matthias Wenthe
_______________________________________________________________________
Dr. Matthias Wenthe
IMS GmbH Kreuzbreite 15a
D-31675 Bueckeburg
Germany
_______________________________
wenthe@ims.de
_______________________________
Tel: ..49.5722.892417
Fax: ..49.5722.916623
_______________________________
Reply to: