AMD 64 stability

[Vivek Khera]

On Feb 22, 2006, at 11:35 PM, Robert Leftwich wrote:

> Be wary of FreeBSD's AMD64 support - test, test again and do even  
> more testing before the box leaves your sight!

my experience:

On the following it has been rock solid:  Dell PE1850, Dell PE800  
(though in 6.0 and up ACPI locks up at boot), Dell PE1425 (in testing  
still), Sun X4100 dual CPU.  The Dells are Intel EM64T and the Sun is  
true Opteron.

On the following it has been hit-or-miss: generic systems based on  
Tyan S2881 with Dual Opteron CPU.  I went through 6 motherboards in 4  
physically different systems and exacly one has been stable, though  
I'm afraid to reboot it.

And just because your data center is 300 miles away doens't mean you  
can't manage it.  Just hook up a serial console to a terminal server  
like a Cyclades box (or daisy-chain serial port amongst the other  
servers there) and ensure your kernel has the debugger enabled so you  
can control it even if it seems to hang on boot.

All of the systems I use also route BIOS POST messages to the serial  
port.  The Sun is best at it, allowing ctrl keys to control the  
functions.  The dell's require appropriate terminal emulation of F keys.