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Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!msunews!agate!howland.reston.ans.net!cs.utexas.edu!bcm!news.msfc.nasa.gov!news.larc.nasa.gov!xanth.cs.odu.edu!maui.cc.odu.edu!jonathan From: jonathan@maui.cc.odu.edu (Jonathan Sturges) Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.questions Subject: Re: [FreeBSD] - new motherboard woes Date: 5 Jan 1995 19:10:25 GMT Organization: Old Dominion University, Department of Computer Science Lines: 29 Message-ID: <3ehg71$hib@xanth.cs.odu.edu> References: <3eh9qa$1ie@usenet.ucs.indiana.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: maui.cc.odu.edu X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL2] Alec Habig (ahabig@bigbang.astro.indiana.edu) wrote: : 1) During periods of intense CPU and disk I/O (like a compile), the machine : randomly hangs. Back before 1.1, this was due to an interrupt timing problem : in wd.c for the IDE controller. The kernal would somehow miss the drive's "I'm : done" flag, and sit there waiting for it forever. However, this was fixed for : 1.1+ - at least the upgrade cured the problem on my system. However, the new This is happening to me right now! I'm running 1.1Release, and I've got a 486SX-25 VLB system. This didn't happen until I installed my accelerated VLB controller card. Could it be the condition you describe above? If so, can I use the wd.c from 1.1.5.1? And, what do I rebuild after getting the new wd.c code? : 2) My new board's main attraction was the external cache for the CPU. If I : boot DOS, it improves my machine's speed by almost a factor of 2. However, if : I try and boot FreeBSD with the cache enabled, it crashes just at the beginning : of the boot sequence (right after you hit return, before the memory test) and : complains "page fault in kernal mode". Side note - the cache makes OS/2 spew : as well, although DOS thinks it's peachy. What gives? Where should I look for : a potential hardware problem? Or does the kernal need to know about the cache : somehow? My computer, as well as almost every 486 out there, has external CPU cache (as well as internal). Both of mine are enabled, and there are no problems. I've never installed any of the 386bsd family on a 386-class machine, so I'm not sure what the problem could be. Maybe the board manufacturer pulled some "black magic" to make the cache work, figuring nobody would be using the machine for anything but DOS? Just a random thought... :-) -Jonathan jonathan@cc.odu.edu