amd nvidia and mem=nopentium

amd nvidia and mem=nopentium

[Nicolas Turro]

Hi, i have system dual athlon  XP 1900+ system and a nvidia graphic board :

PCI devices found:
  Bus  0, device   0, function  0:
    Host bridge: PCI device 1022:700c (Advanced Micro Devices [AMD]) (rev 17).
      Master Capable.  Latency=32.
      Prefetchable 32 bit memory at 0xf0000000 [0xf7ffffff].
      Prefetchable 32 bit memory at 0xef800000 [0xef800fff].
      I/O at 0xe800 [0xe803].
  Bus  0, device   1, function  0:
    PCI bridge: PCI device 1022:700d (Advanced Micro Devices [AMD]) (rev 0).
      Master Capable.  No bursts.  Min Gnt=8.
  Bus  0, device   7, function  0:
    ISA bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] AMD-768 [??] ISA (rev 4).
  Bus  0, device   7, function  1:
    IDE interface: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] AMD-768 [??] IDE (rev 4).
      Master Capable.  Latency=32.
      I/O at 0xd800 [0xd80f].
  Bus  0, device   7, function  3:
    Bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] AMD-768 [??] ACPI (rev 3).
      Master Capable.  Latency=32.
  Bus  0, device  16, function  0:
    PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] AMD-768 [??] PCI (rev 4).
      Master Capable.  No bursts.  Min Gnt=4.
  Bus  1, device   5, function  0:
    VGA compatible controller: PCI device 10de:0202 (nVidia Corporation) (rev 
163).
      IRQ 11.
      Master Capable.  Latency=248.  Min Gnt=5.Max Lat=1.
      Non-prefetchable 32 bit memory at 0xe6000000 [0xe6ffffff].
      Prefetchable 32 bit memory at 0xe8000000 [0xebffffff].
      Prefetchable 32 bit memory at 0xe7800000 [0xe787ffff].
  Bus  2, device   0, function  0:
    USB Controller: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] AMD-768 [??] USB (rev 7).
      IRQ 5.
      Master Capable.  Latency=32.  Max Lat=80.
      Non-prefetchable 32 bit memory at 0xe5800000 [0xe5800fff].
  Bus  2, device   4, function  0:
    Multimedia audio controller: C-Media Electronics Inc CM8738 (rev 16).
      IRQ 10.
      Master Capable.  Latency=32.  Min Gnt=2.Max Lat=24.
      I/O at 0xc800 [0xc8ff].
  Bus  2, device   6, function  0:
    Ethernet controller: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] 79c970 [PCnet LANCE] 
(rev 68).
      IRQ 10.
      Master Capable.  Latency=32.  Min Gnt=24.Max Lat=24.
      I/O at 0xc400 [0xc41f].
      Non-prefetchable 32 bit memory at 0xe5000000 [0xe500001f].

I need to use the mem=nopentium kernel parameter in order to run X without
crashes. I'd like to know :
1- what are the consequences of  'mem=nopentium' ? Any performance loss ?
i intend to use a gigabit ethernet adapter on this box.
2- is there any fix going on that i should monitor ?

Thanks in advance..

Nicolas

Re: amd nvidia and mem=nopentium

[Alan Cox]

> Hi, i have system dual athlon  XP 1900+ system and a nvidia graphic board :
> I need to use the mem=nopentium kernel parameter in order to run X without
> crashes. I'd like to know :
> 1- what are the consequences of  'mem=nopentium' ? Any performance loss ?

Yes. On the whole probably not a lot. You are running XP not MP processors
and the like so you are obviously not too worried about stability. You might
want to see if it actually does crash without nopentium.

> i intend to use a gigabit ethernet adapter on this box.
> 2- is there any fix going on that i should monitor ?

Some gige cards don't seem to work with some dual athlon bioses. Other than
that it should be fine

Re: amd nvidia and mem=nopentium

[Nicolas Turro]

Thanks for your answer, Alan.

Le Vendredi 15 Mars 2002 20:05, Alan Cox a écrit :
> > Hi, i have system dual athlon  XP 1900+ system and a nvidia graphic board
> > : I need to use the mem=nopentium kernel parameter in order to run X
> > without crashes. I'd like to know :
> > 1- what are the consequences of  'mem=nopentium' ? Any performance loss ?
>
> Yes. On the whole probably not a lot. You are running XP not MP processors
> and the like so you are obviously not too worried about stability. You
> might want to see if it actually does crash without nopentium.

Well... In fact, i am really worried about stability, but i don't have much 
choice on the configuration. I have to choose between this config
and a dual 2.0 Ghz Xeon (RDRAM) which has roughtly the same perfs,
but which is 50% more expensive !

 Do you have pointers  showing stability problems when using
XP processor in a multiprocessor context ?

The Athlon actually crashes as soon as I start X with the nvidia board if i 
don't use the mem=nopentium option.
With a Matrox G450, i don't need this option...

> > i intend to use a gigabit ethernet adapter on this box.
> > 2- is there any fix going on that i should monitor ?
>
> Some gige cards don't seem to work with some dual athlon bioses. Other than
> that it should be fine

I've juste tested an Intel e1000 on it and achieved 900 Mbits/s with ttcp....
So i guess it works... I do some nfs benches right now to see if i can
reach the disk transfer limit (around 40 Mo/s for sequencial acces on a big 
file).

N. Turro

Re: amd nvidia and mem=nopentium

[Alan Cox]

> choice on the configuration. I have to choose between this config
> and a dual 2.0 Ghz Xeon (RDRAM) which has roughtly the same perfs,
> but which is 50% more expensive !

I'd go Athlon

>  Do you have pointers  showing stability problems when using
> XP processor in a multiprocessor context ?

Remember the XP's haven't been tested in MP configurations (or tested and
failed). The same was true of celerons and as most people found the fail
rate was pretty low 8)

Alan

Re: amd nvidia and mem=nopentium

[Shane Nay]

> I'd go Athlon
>
> >  Do you have pointers  showing stability problems when using
> > XP processor in a multiprocessor context ?
>
> Remember the XP's haven't been tested in MP configurations (or
> tested and failed). The same was true of celerons and as most
> people found the fail rate was pretty low 8)

You have to bridge L5-4 on the newest XP CPUs though.  My Tyan Tiger 
boards' BIOS was giving me something like-
00Error
  Failed

Turned out it needed those guys bridged up.  It's not that difficult 
though, I had a circuit pen lying about and just drew in a trace :).  
(You don't have to fill the cracks like the overclock bridges)

Anyway, it was pretty easy, but I wouldn't suggest it for the faint 
of heart.  Running 2.4.18 happily now in dual config with no 
stability problems.  I have compiled the kernel a few times, compiled 
Qt, all of KDE, xemacs, glibc, gcc, and a couple billion other things 
that I can't remember right now.  So, no stability problems with the 
newest XPs and a hand closed L5-4 bridge.  (So far anyway :) )

Thanks,
Shane Nay.