Messages in this thread |  | | From | "Alistair Phipps" <> | Subject | RE: [GOLDMINE!!!] Athlon optimisation bug (was Re: Duron kernel crash) | Date | Thu, 13 Sep 2001 11:20:10 +0100 |
| |
> >Today I updated the BIOS of my motherboard, a ABIT KT7A (VIA Apollo KT133A > >chipset). The kernel I had (2.4.9) started crashing on boot with an > >invalid page fault, usually right after starting init. I tryed a i686 > >kernel and noticed it works OK, so I recompiled my crashy kernel only > >switching the processor type and it also worked. changed it back to > >Athlon/K7/Duron and it starts crashing. > > > >Anyone else experiencing this? > > BINGO! > > This problem is known about, but this is the first report we've had > of it on a Duron (as opposed to Athlon), and you've successfully > tracked it down to the updated BIOS. > > We need the versions of your old and new BIOSes, as accurately as you > can make it.
I don't know if this is relevant, but on the Abit KT7 w/Duron 700 I'm using right now, I upgraded from the -ZT BIOS to the -3R BIOS, and immediately had problems booting. I ran memtest86 (www.memtest86.com) and found that on test 5 I was getting many errors at a particular address range (there had been no errors with the previous BIOS). I tried turning down the RAM speed settings in the BIOS, but none helped - then I tried setting the "MD driving strength" to "Lo" instead of "Hi" (Hi had been the default) and suddenly got complete stability and no memory errors with memtest86, even at the high performance RAM settings.
I can't test if this is related to the i686 vs Athlon "kernel" bug as I'm not running Linux right now (long story - this isn't my own machine) but it might be something worth checking. The crashing occuring may actually be caused by memory problems - I suggest everyone experiencing this test their system with memtest86 - particularly tests 5 and 6. It takes a long time but may be worth it to rule out problematic RAM / BIOS settings for RAM.
- Alistair Phipps
- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/
|  |