SMP machine with 2GB ram hangs without any clue

SMP machine with 2GB ram hangs without any clue

[Wouter van Bommel]

Hi all,

I am hoping someone can help me with picking the right (read stable) kernel for the following hardware configuration:
2x 1Ghz PIII fitted on a serverworks chipset, and 2GB ram.
Video Card is an Geforce MX-400 twinview setup (no agp, several Geforce cards tried)
Network is an intergrated intel ether express (eepro100 driver)

For some reason it is not possible to get the above configuration. Tried several versions of the 2.4.x kernel series (include the Suse ones, as 7.2 is the suse version installed)
Also tried various versions of the NVidia driver and all versions of XFree between 4.02 and 4.1

None of the combinations would give a stable system (that is hanging the kernel afther 1/2 - 60 minutes)
The system would crash so badly that even ping responsed stayed out. (No numlock either)

The machine is some sort of stable if the kernel is a 2.4.4 one compiled for only 1 cpu. (Booting with nosmp would hang the system)

Does anyone else have simular experience (or knows how to solve this).
If more information is required I will provide it.

Waiting for a solving answer,

Wouter van Bommel

Re: SMP machine with 2GB ram hangs without any clue

[Mario Mikocevic]

Hi,

> I am hoping someone can help me with picking the right (read stable) kernel for the following hardware configuration:
> 2x 1Ghz PIII fitted on a serverworks chipset, and 2GB ram.
> Video Card is an Geforce MX-400 twinview setup (no agp, several Geforce cards tried)
> Network is an intergrated intel ether express (eepro100 driver)

If we count out video card for me the best combo so far is
	2.4.9 kernel with intel e100-1.6.13
never had a single problem with it.
(several servers, realmeadia/web/file servers, some with teaming/redundancy ethXs)

-- 
Mario Mikočević (Mozgy)
mozgy at hinet dot hr
My favourite FUBAR ...

Re: SMP machine with 2GB ram hangs without any clue

[Igor Mozetic]

> 2x 1Ghz PIII fitted on a serverworks chipset, and 2GB ram.
> Video Card is an Geforce MX-400 twinview setup (no agp, several Geforce cards tried)
> Network is an intergrated intel ether express (eepro100 driver)
>
> None of the combinations would give a stable system (that is hanging the kernel afther 1/2 - 60 minutes)
> The system would crash so badly that even ping responsed stayed out. (No numlock either)

I have a similar problem - see recent thread "Any stable 2.4 kernel?"
I received some useful suggestions:
1) For real stability, consider using 2.2
2) I'm better off then you since my machine stays up for days/weeks.
I had the best luck with 2.4.3 so far (weeks of uptime).
However, when it locks up not even power-off button works.
I have to unplug the power.
3) Default eepro100 driver can be problematic, and some comercial 
distros use Intel's driver. I don't know if it can cause such hard 
lockups (anybody comment, please?) but it seems like the next candidate
to consider (after mboard and highmem).

-Igor Mozetic