Return to BSD News archive
Xref: sserve comp.os.386bsd.bugs:2093 comp.os.386bsd.questions:8612 Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!munnari.oz.au!foxhound.dsto.gov.au!fang.dsto.gov.au!yoyo.aarnet.edu.au!news.adelaide.edu.au!basser.cs.su.oz.au!news.cs.su.oz.au!metro!dmssyd.syd.dms.CSIRO.AU!dmsperth.per.dms.CSIRO.AU!uniwa!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!yeshua.marcam.com!MathWorks.Com!europa.eng.gtefsd.com!howland.reston.ans.net!pipex!uknet!EU.net!news.funet.fi!klaava!klaava!not-for-mail From: torvalds@klaava.Helsinki.FI (Linus Torvalds) Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.bugs,comp.os.386bsd.questions Subject: Re: Protected Mode Lockup Problems--Please Help. Date: 8 Feb 1994 12:11:29 +0200 Organization: University of Helsinki Lines: 25 Message-ID: <2j7ogh$pv@klaava.Helsinki.FI> References: <199402060404.XAA21622@freenet.buffalo.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: klaava.helsinki.fi In article <199402060404.XAA21622@freenet.buffalo.edu>, Christopher L. Mikkelson <ae516@freenet.buffalo.edu> wrote: >Hello all! > A friend of mine is having troubles with his machine. Both Linux and >FreeBSD 1.0 will sporadically lock up his system. Also, under DOS, >DJGPP will occasionally lock up and QEMM will often do a cold reboot. >I know it isn't a software problem, because it is shared by everything, >so it must be either hardware or firmware. He is running a 386DX-40 with >AMI BIOS v 1.0.55a. Two things I have found that cause most of these kinds of lockups under linux: either faulty memory or a bad i387. The faulty memory is likely to result in various other problems first (kernel panics due to corrupted data structures), but a bad i387 can result in these silent deaths. With linux, you can force the math emulation code by giving the "no387" flag to LILO at bootup: if that removes the problems you know what the culprit is. Especially older clone 387's are suspect, and seem to lock up the bus under some circumstances (the indications seem to be either (a) page faults during coprocessor errors or (b) synchronization problems between the i386 and i387, possibly due to math errors). Linus