AMD 64 stability

[Ken Gunderson]

On Thu, 23 Feb 2006 09:55:37 -0500
Vivek Khera <vivek at khera.org> wrote:

> 
> 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.
> 

Did you ever test drive the x2100??

> 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.
> 

I have a few Tyan Transport TA26's wh/ use the S2882 board.  The one
MAJOR PITA issue I had w/them is w/LSI 320-1 MegaRAID cards.  A mirror
using "slot 1" degrades under moderate load and cannot be recovered.
The problem goes away w/320-2x.  Tyan and LSI are investigating.  Tyan
reports "unable to reproduce/no problem found".  Right....  LSI
support, by contrast, rocks and they are investigating further.

> 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.
> 

Or an IPMI card....

> 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.

Doesn't the Sun use a Tyan board?

-- 
Best regards,

Ken Gunderson

Q: Because it reverses the logical flow of conversation.
A: Why is putting a reply at the top of the message frowned upon?