Michael J McCafferty wrote: > All, > > I suppose this could be a driver problem of some sort, but I have to > ask this question: > > Works: > Supermicro PDSML-LN2+ motherboard, Core2 Q6600, 1x2GB Kingston DDR2-667 > RAM or 2x1GB Kingston RAM, 3ware 8006-2 RAID card, 2x250GB WD HDD. > > Also Works: > Supermicro PDSML-LN2+ motherboard, Core2 Q6600, 2x2GB Kingston DDR2-667 > RAM or 4x1GB Kingston RAM, 2x250GB WD HDD. No RAID card. > > Does NOT Work: > Supermicro PDSML-LN2+ motherboard, Core2 Q6600, 2x2GB Kingston DDR2-667 > RAM or 4x1GB Kingston RAM, 3ware 8006-2 RAID card, 2x250GB WD HDD. > > What doesn't work: > 1) AMD64 Debian 4.0r0 Net Install will install. Some errors during > install installing base system. Post install reboots are fine. After > apt-get upgrade, it can not find the root filesystem when rebooting. > > 2) AMD64 Debian 4.0r1 Net Install will install. Some errors during > install installing base system. Post install reboot can not find the > root filesystem when rebooting. > > 3) i386 Debian 4.0r1 Net Install will hang at the end of retrieving file > 92 of 92. The OS is not installed. > > 4) x86_64 CentOS 5 minimal install fails. > > With the Debian OSes it seems that the patching (upgrading) of the > kernel fails and leaves it unbootable. After manyh hours and being very > sleepy, I seem to remember being able to do upgrade-grub and > upgrade-initramfs to after the failed kernel upgrade to keep the system > bootable. But this is not an acceptable way to leave the system to > deliver it to a customer who plans to make this thing a Xen box. I tried > putting Xen kernels on there myself and it behaves the same way as with > the regular upgraded kernel from apt-get upgrade|dist-upgrade > > So, WTF. Why does this all work fine when the server has 2GB of RAM, > but does not work when 4GB of RAM. This problem has been duplicated on 3 > separate systems with different RAID cards, and different RAM. > Supermicro lists the system as able to use 8GB RAM with 2GB sticks... > OR... WTF, why can't I use the 3ware cards in this system with 4GB RAM > or more ? > The 3ware site shows support for AMD64 Debian 3.1, and RHEL4 on this > card. I dunno if this is an intentional ommission of Debian 4.0 and > RHEL5 or if the page has not been updated or if it just hasn't been > tested or ??? > > Thoughts ?
This sounds like a problem with the 3ware card using memory mapping. I don't know who provides the driver, but it's possible that the card can only be made to operate with the driver in low RAM. When you provide more than 2GB (think signed 32 bit pointers) something fails and it can't find what it needs if it's in high memory. I don't know what kernel you are running, but there might be a way to limit drivers to only loading in low memory. Gus -- [email protected] http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-list
