Re: Overheating attributed to Freebsd --sysctl variablesnotavailable--

2003-11-06 Thread Guy Van Sanden
The answers below are right, even if this vars are out, the machine
should still work, or it has faulty hardware.
OS's like Windows 95,98,ME don't do idle calls unless you install
something like rain on them, so they would always trash such a machine.

In addition, if you would have the machine build with idle (c1) calls,
and where running a long compile/code job (8+ hours), then it would
crash also, that kinda defeats buying a powerfull processor...



On Tue, 2003-11-04 at 20:26, nw1 wrote:
 Paul mather,
 Thanks for your response ...
 See comments below (annotated)
 - Original Message - 
 From: Paul Mather [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 Sent: Tuesday, November 04, 2003 9:45 AM
 Subject: Re: Overheating attributed to Freebsd --sysctl variablesnotavailable--
 
 
  On Mon, 3 Nov 2003 21:07:45 -0700 (MST), Technical Director [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 wrote:
 
  = Forgive me for saying:
  =
  = If this system is borked with FreeBSD due to the cpu's not cycling
  = 'down', then use a different operating system. FreeBSD is not responsible
  = for your trouble if you can solve the problem by moving on. Doing so and
  = solving the problem is more important than holding the OS and the
  = contributors to it accountable to something so seemingly far fetched.
  =
  = One way to test overall integrity of your hardware is to boot to bios and
  = leave it. Does it bake out on you? Then there is definitely something
  = wrong with your hardware, perhaps a fan is spinning less rpms than when
  = new.
  =
  = In my humble opinion this is probably not associated with the OS, but,
  = that doesn't solve 'your' problem. So besides seeing it for myself I can't
  = see an absolute need to use FreeBSD, in your words the problem, and not
  = use some other [$]NIX.
  =
  = One last thing, if your CPU's are baking out and crashing, are you not
  = nervous that under load this will happen no matter what the OS? Tweaking
  = system variables will not help you if your server is working ultra-hard,
  = at some point you will reach a mark that your system should still be able
  = to do which currently it can't.
  =
  = I doubt hardware manufactuers put out equipment that can't run at 100% at
  = least.
 
  FWIW, I doubt the accuracy of that last paragraph, and don't think
  this is so seemingly far fetched at all. :-)
 
  I have a related problem.  In my case, it's a borrowed laptop on which
  I installed FreeBSD 5.1-CURRENT (quite a while ago, but last
  {build,install}{kernel,world} was circa July 2003).  Also installed on
  the system is Windows 2000 Professional.  The related problem I have
  is that I can fairly easily get the laptop to power off due to
  thermally-initiated shutdown using FreeBSD (complete with current
  temperature has exceeded system limits type messages on the console
  beforehand), but can't seem to do so via Win2K. :-(
 
 These are the same two (2) operating systems I am using.  FreeBSD will cause my 
 AMD-MP's
 to overheat while only idling --depending on the room temperature.
 
  Now I know that in a sense this is apples and oranges, because I don't
  do precisely the same things under both operating systems.  But, it
  seems that high-CPU/system activity under FreeBSD will ultimately lead
  to a thermal shutdown, but not on Win2K (no so far as I've been able
  to manage, anyway).
 
 Exactly what I'm experiencing unless and until I set the following:
 
 machdep.apm_suspend_delay: 0
 machdep.apm_standby_delay: 0
 
 If i have the above two (2) lines set to:
 machdep.apm_suspend_delay: 1
 machdep.apm_standby_delay: 1
 
 Its just a matter of time before one or more of the processors overheat and the box 
 shuts
 down --without notice.
 This is inconvenient, to say the least.  For
  example, a FreeBSD buildworld or buildkernel will not complete; it'll
  get part way through before the machine becomes too hot and shuts
  itself down.  Similarly, building big ports like Mozilla won't
  complete, which makes portupgrade a bit of fun.  Needless to say, this
  system doesn't get updated much. :-)
 
 You may want to try and set those above variables to '0'
 machdep.apm_suspend_delay: 0
 machdep.apm_standby_delay: 0
 
 
  Now I'm not saying the machine doesn't become physically hot when
  running Win2K, too.  It does (e.g., when playing CPU-intensive games,
  etc.).  But somehow, Win2K is able to manage things so that the system
  does not become so hot that the shutdown kicks in.
 
 Same here
 
  So, I'm wondering if there's some sysctl or other knob that can be set
  in FreeBSD that will ameliorate this problem.
 
 Once again try:
 machdep.apm_suspend_delay: 0
 machdep.apm_standby_delay: 0
 
 (I thought
  laptop/mobile CPUs generally were able to step down to lower clock
  speeds to conserve power/run cooler, for example.)  If I could do
  system rebuilds and port builds without having to restart that'd be a
  big improvement! :-)
 
 
  Unlike the original poster, this is an Intel-based system

Re: Overheating attributed to Freebsd --sysctl variablesnotavailable--

2003-11-04 Thread nw1
Paul mather,
Thanks for your response ...
See comments below (annotated)
- Original Message - 
From: Paul Mather [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Tuesday, November 04, 2003 9:45 AM
Subject: Re: Overheating attributed to Freebsd --sysctl variablesnotavailable--


 On Mon, 3 Nov 2003 21:07:45 -0700 (MST), Technical Director [EMAIL PROTECTED]
wrote:

 = Forgive me for saying:
 =
 = If this system is borked with FreeBSD due to the cpu's not cycling
 = 'down', then use a different operating system. FreeBSD is not responsible
 = for your trouble if you can solve the problem by moving on. Doing so and
 = solving the problem is more important than holding the OS and the
 = contributors to it accountable to something so seemingly far fetched.
 =
 = One way to test overall integrity of your hardware is to boot to bios and
 = leave it. Does it bake out on you? Then there is definitely something
 = wrong with your hardware, perhaps a fan is spinning less rpms than when
 = new.
 =
 = In my humble opinion this is probably not associated with the OS, but,
 = that doesn't solve 'your' problem. So besides seeing it for myself I can't
 = see an absolute need to use FreeBSD, in your words the problem, and not
 = use some other [$]NIX.
 =
 = One last thing, if your CPU's are baking out and crashing, are you not
 = nervous that under load this will happen no matter what the OS? Tweaking
 = system variables will not help you if your server is working ultra-hard,
 = at some point you will reach a mark that your system should still be able
 = to do which currently it can't.
 =
 = I doubt hardware manufactuers put out equipment that can't run at 100% at
 = least.

 FWIW, I doubt the accuracy of that last paragraph, and don't think
 this is so seemingly far fetched at all. :-)

 I have a related problem.  In my case, it's a borrowed laptop on which
 I installed FreeBSD 5.1-CURRENT (quite a while ago, but last
 {build,install}{kernel,world} was circa July 2003).  Also installed on
 the system is Windows 2000 Professional.  The related problem I have
 is that I can fairly easily get the laptop to power off due to
 thermally-initiated shutdown using FreeBSD (complete with current
 temperature has exceeded system limits type messages on the console
 beforehand), but can't seem to do so via Win2K. :-(

These are the same two (2) operating systems I am using.  FreeBSD will cause my 
AMD-MP's
to overheat while only idling --depending on the room temperature.

 Now I know that in a sense this is apples and oranges, because I don't
 do precisely the same things under both operating systems.  But, it
 seems that high-CPU/system activity under FreeBSD will ultimately lead
 to a thermal shutdown, but not on Win2K (no so far as I've been able
 to manage, anyway).

Exactly what I'm experiencing unless and until I set the following:

machdep.apm_suspend_delay: 0
machdep.apm_standby_delay: 0

If i have the above two (2) lines set to:
machdep.apm_suspend_delay: 1
machdep.apm_standby_delay: 1

Its just a matter of time before one or more of the processors overheat and the box 
shuts
down --without notice.
This is inconvenient, to say the least.  For
 example, a FreeBSD buildworld or buildkernel will not complete; it'll
 get part way through before the machine becomes too hot and shuts
 itself down.  Similarly, building big ports like Mozilla won't
 complete, which makes portupgrade a bit of fun.  Needless to say, this
 system doesn't get updated much. :-)

You may want to try and set those above variables to '0'
machdep.apm_suspend_delay: 0
machdep.apm_standby_delay: 0


 Now I'm not saying the machine doesn't become physically hot when
 running Win2K, too.  It does (e.g., when playing CPU-intensive games,
 etc.).  But somehow, Win2K is able to manage things so that the system
 does not become so hot that the shutdown kicks in.

Same here

 So, I'm wondering if there's some sysctl or other knob that can be set
 in FreeBSD that will ameliorate this problem.

Once again try:
machdep.apm_suspend_delay: 0
machdep.apm_standby_delay: 0

(I thought
 laptop/mobile CPUs generally were able to step down to lower clock
 speeds to conserve power/run cooler, for example.)  If I could do
 system rebuilds and port builds without having to restart that'd be a
 big improvement! :-)


 Unlike the original poster, this is an Intel-based system, not Athlon.
 It's a Gateway Solo 450 laptop.
This is strange, in comparison to my setup.  The machine that's giving this overheat
problem is the build_box (AMD-MP).  we have client machines that are all intel based; 
P72,
P200 and a 1Ghz processor -- these machines mount via NFS to the problem machine and
installworld and kernel using the same src, as the NFS mount implies, --none of the 
client
machines needs the following variables/knobs set:
machdep.apm_suspend_delay: 0
machdep.apm_standby_delay: 0
as those intel based machines never overheat or exhibit and instability.  Granted,
currently those intel

Re: Overheating attributed to Freebsd --sysctl variablesnotavailable--

2003-11-04 Thread nw1
annotated below
- Original Message - 
From: Technical Director [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: Paul Mather [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Tuesday, November 04, 2003 12:32 PM
Subject: Re: Overheating attributed to Freebsd --sysctl variablesnotavailable--



  = I doubt hardware manufactuers put out equipment that can't run at 100% at
  = least.
 
  FWIW, I doubt the accuracy of that last paragraph, and don't think
  this is so seemingly far fetched at all. :-)

 Considering the high demand for consumer's purchasing 'their' products, a
 mishap like My server can't run at high cpu due to it crashing is part
 and parcel to shooting yourself in the foot as a manufactuer.
I'm not sure if your addressing the original poster of this thread (me) or Paul, who 
has a
similar problem.



 If you buy a MB/PROC that cooks just by operating as a server, which in
 most cases what FreeBSD will be used for, and you know that it 'may'
 crash or lockup due to heat, don't use FreeBSD.

 - or -

 Buy hardware that won't cook out.

I disagree with both of your suggestions above.
Just dropping an item, in this case the OS, because its contributing to a specific 
problem
is not my idea of building or refining.  Up until this point, I thought it was more an 
AMD
issue until I heard from *Paul Mather --who uses intel based hardware.  Paul Mathers'
issue, with his *laptop seems to be more severe than my overheating with the *server.

Yes = there are some tricks more knowledgable people in the community can do to work
around issues such as this, but I'm hoping to bring the issue to the attention of 
whomever
needs to see this in order to get a permenant fix.  Having to set the following to '0':
machdep.apm_suspend_delay: 0
machdep.apm_standby_delay: 0
just for the machine to *not overheat while idling --doesn't seem correct.

The issue at hand may very well be explainable in its current state, but after hearing
from *Paul Mather and working closely with a lead tech @ AMD and Tyan; I'm confident 
I'm
in one of the correct forum to discuss this.

Personally; I shouldn't have to buy my way out of this problem, and I will not leave
FreeBSD for another OS becaue of this. :-)  Lets find out what we can do to remedy this
within FreeBSD instead of pushing people away from the project.

 R.

 PS

 Have you both tried to run 4.#-[CURRENT/STABLE/RELEASE] to see if the
 problem goes away?

  I have a related problem.  In my case, it's a borrowed laptop on which
  I installed FreeBSD 5.1-CURRENT (quite a while ago, but last
  {build,install}{kernel,world} was circa July 2003).  Also installed on
  the system is Windows 2000 Professional.  The related problem I have
  is that I can fairly easily get the laptop to power off due to
  thermally-initiated shutdown using FreeBSD (complete with current
  temperature has exceeded system limits type messages on the console
  beforehand), but can't seem to do so via Win2K. :-(
 
  Now I know that in a sense this is apples and oranges, because I don't
  do precisely the same things under both operating systems.  But, it
  seems that high-CPU/system activity under FreeBSD will ultimately lead
  to a thermal shutdown, but not on Win2K (no so far as I've been able
  to manage, anyway).  This is inconvenient, to say the least.  For
  example, a FreeBSD buildworld or buildkernel will not complete; it'll
  get part way through before the machine becomes too hot and shuts
  itself down.  Similarly, building big ports like Mozilla won't
  complete, which makes portupgrade a bit of fun.  Needless to say, this
  system doesn't get updated much. :-)
 
  Now I'm not saying the machine doesn't become physically hot when
  running Win2K, too.  It does (e.g., when playing CPU-intensive games,
  etc.).  But somehow, Win2K is able to manage things so that the system
  does not become so hot that the shutdown kicks in.
 
  So, I'm wondering if there's some sysctl or other knob that can be set
  in FreeBSD that will ameliorate this problem.  (I thought
  laptop/mobile CPUs generally were able to step down to lower clock
  speeds to conserve power/run cooler, for example.)  If I could do
  system rebuilds and port builds without having to restart that'd be a
  big improvement! :-)
 
  Unlike the original poster, this is an Intel-based system, not Athlon.
  It's a Gateway Solo 450 laptop.  If I didn't know better, I'd think
  that Gateway engineered (pah!) this system so it would run Windows
  okay and that's it as far as they're concerned. ;-)  FWIW, attached
  at the end of this message is a copy of /var/run/dmesg.boot in case
  anyone can suggest something to help.
 
  Cheers,
 
  Paul.
 
  PS: I'm glad I'm only borrowing this laptop and didn't buy it!!  The
  owner of the laptop only uses Windows, so this is only a problem for
  me running FreeBSD.
 
  e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 
  Without music to decorate it, time is just a bunch of boring production
   deadlines or dates by which bills must be paid

Re: Overheating attributed to Freebsd --sysctl variablesnotavailable--

2003-11-03 Thread nw1
Annotated below.

- Original Message - 
From: Technical Director [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Monday, November 03, 2003 11:07 PM
Subject: Re: Overheating attributed to Freebsd --sysctl variablesnotavailable--



 Forgive me for saying:

No need to ask for forgiveness.  I'm looking for honest feedback.  :)
I have been working with both Tyan and AMD to resolve this, the issue is still
here, --more below.

 If this system is borked with FreeBSD due to the cpu's not cycling
 'down', then use a different operating system. FreeBSD is not responsible
 for your trouble if you can solve the problem by moving on. Doing so and
 solving the problem is more important than holding the OS and the
 contributors to it accountable to something so seemingly far fetched.

I'm kind of stuck on FreeBSD.  Not interested in moving on to another *nix or any 
other OS
for that matter.


 One way to test overall integrity of your hardware is to boot to bios and
 leave it. Does it bake out on you? Then there is definitely something
 wrong with your hardware, perhaps a fan is spinning less rpms than when
 new.

This has been done.  Both the machine with the heat issue and his sister (18 apart) 
run
neck and neck with respect to the hardware monitor readings, temperatures and such, and
neither box, as you put it; bakes out on me/us -- this has been tested overnight in 
a
warm environment, the same environment that the OS runs in normally except for this 
test,
we cut the air-conditioner off.  This issue I'm dealing with only happens when Freebsd 
is
loaded and the air conditioner is off.


 In my humble opinion this is probably not associated with the OS, but,
 that doesn't solve 'your' problem. So besides seeing it for myself I can't
 see an absolute need to use FreeBSD, in your words the problem, and not
 use some other [$]NIX.

We would rather change hardware than leave FreeBSD --at this point.

 One last thing, if your CPU's are baking out and crashing, are you not
 nervous that under load this will happen no matter what the OS? Tweaking
 system variables will not help you if your server is working ultra-hard,
 at some point you will reach a mark that your system should still be able
 to do which currently it can't.

This does make absolute sense, but this isn't a publicly accessable machine, so it 
would
rarely reach that max_load to cause it to overheat as its doing now, provided, I can 
find
someone to answer the second outstanding question; Where are those sysctl variables 
that i
was previously able to set?  They are no longer available


 I doubt hardware manufactuers put out equipment that can't run at 100% at
 least.

 My 2 cents.

Your 2-cents makes perfect sense, but as I posted above, I would rather replace 
either/
or both the motherboard and both processors.  Before doing so, I had to hear what the
community at large thinks about this.

Thank you.  :-)

 R.

 On Mon, 3 Nov 2003, nw1 wrote:

  Both the board(s) and the processors were RMA'd.
  Both boards and all four (4) processors were swapped around between
 both OS's and the
  problem remains using the hardware with the FreeBSD OS.  The latest
 BIOS is installed.
 
  We also have a newly purchased board (S-2466), the same thing occurs.
 
  Details @ http://69.3.136.141/freebsd/installation/sysctl_variables_missing
 
  - Original Message - 
  From: jon [EMAIL PROTECTED]
  To: nw1 [EMAIL PROTECTED]
  Sent: Monday, November 03, 2003 10:00 PM
  Subject: Re: Overheating attributed to Freebsd --sysctl variables notavailable--
 
 
   On Mon, 2003-11-03 at 19:57, nw1 wrote:
 What version of FreeBSD are you using?
 Did you compile amp into the kernel?
   
I think you're not understanding what I posted @
http://69.3.136.141/freebsd/installation/sysctl_variables_missing
   
The first line has what version I'm running.  The entire document @
http://69.3.136.141/freebsd/installation/sysctl_variables_missing implies; this
was a
running system with no serious issues; meaning; the sysctl items I'm speaking 
of
were
  in
fact available and working.
  
   i can say from prior experience w/ hardware, if you system has
   overheated you dont know where you stand (you may have damaged all kinds
   of stuff, we had a board that over heated; then 2nd ide channel went
   down, when we used micron ram!?! and micron was fine in board until the
   overheat then any other brand ram worked) tyan has a three year warranty
   use it! BUT my bet is there is a change in the chipset and you wont get
   the sysctl mibs anyway. you try the newest BIOS flash?
  
   good luck
  
   if you want to ensure you get a new board, flex it until you stretch a
   trace or two.
  
  
  
 
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Re: Overheating attributed to Freebsd --sysctl variablesnotavailable--

2003-11-03 Thread Chris Pressey
On Tue, 4 Nov 2003 00:07:14 -0500
nw1 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

 This does make absolute sense, but this isn't a publicly accessable
 machine, so it would rarely reach that max_load to cause it to
 overheat as its doing now, provided, I can find someone to answer the
 second outstanding question; Where are those sysctl variables that i
 was previously able to set?  They are no longer available

You know, it's a good question - just for kicks, I tried this on my two
FreeBSD machines:

FreeBSD 4.9-RC #1: Wed Oct 15 08:12:11 PDT 2003:

  # apm
  apm: can't open /dev/apm: Device not configured
  # sysctl machdep.apm_standby_delay
  machdep.apm_standby_delay: 1

FreeBSD 4.9-STABLE #1: Sat Nov  1 09:16:30 PST 2003:

  # apm
  APM version: 1.2
  APM Management: disabled
  AC Line status: unknown
  (... etc ...)
  # sysctl machdep.apm_standby_delay
  sysctl: unknown oid 'machdep.apm_standby_delay'

...which is a bit odd, to say the least.  If anything, I would've
expected the machine that doesn't have APM support compiled in to the
kernel, to be the one with no understanding of APM-related sysctls. 
But, it's the other way around.  Maybe something changed in the last two
weeks?  But you're running 4.8-RELEASE-p13 - I'd expect that to be
(essentially) older than either of my installations...

Anyway, those two oids don't seem to be documented under sysctl(8).  And
googling on them doesn't yield a lot.  I really have no idea, I just
thought I'd throw this out there as another data point.  (This issue
seems to be generating more heat than light, if you'll pardon the pun :)

-Chris
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