System "freeze" / IBM x3650 kernel options
Hi!
I have an IBM x3650 server with a single quad-core 2.0 GHz Intel Xeon
(and one empty CPU-slot) and 4 GB RAM. The system is running an ordinary
installation of etch.
I used the linux-image-2.6.18-6-686-bigmem kernel but had some strange
problems with the server. It all booted fine but occasionally the entire
system freezed for a few seconds. Both running services (smtp, pop,
imap-daemons, ongoing ssh-sessions) and the local console is "dead".
After a little while (about 10-20 seconds typically) all the services
became avaliable again. This has happened at least 5-6 times during last
afternoon and evening.
I booted the server with noapic, nolapic and clock=pit as kernel options
(I later saw that clock was replaced with clocksource, so I don't know
if that option changes anything) during the problems. The kernel hangs
from time to time at boot without the noapic and nolapic options, and
there also seems to be problem with clock skew on the machine.
Now I've upgraded the kernel to etchnhalf
(linux-image-2.6.24-etchnhalf.1-686-bigmem) and I hope that this will
solve the problem. I have seen a few signs of the freeze after the
upgrade, but I cannot verify it yet.
The previous booting problems without noapic and nolapic seems to be
gone with this kernel version, so the kernel now boots without any
special options. I have had a few problems with the clock too after the
upgrade... The kernel prints this at boot time:
kernel: Time: tsc clocksource has been installed.
So, finally, my question... :-)
Is there anyone else running etch on a IBM x3650 (dual or quad core, I
have clock skew-problems with another server too that has a dual core
Xeon)? Is there any kernel parameters needed? Which kernel version is
recommended? 2.6.18, 2.6.24 or a custom kernel?
Does anyone else (with a x3650 or not) have similar problems with etch
and x3650? I get no errors in dmesg or syslog about the freeze and the
system just run on as nothing has happened afterwards.
Best regards, Jonas Mixter
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