Re: Xeon Quad Core (Was: Server Freezing Solid)

2008-11-25 Thread Ross Cameron
On Mon, Nov 24, 2008 at 10:49 PM, Chris Maness [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 Another thought.  Would a Quad Core chip help with compiling applications --
 or would it be the same as a dual core or single core chip running at the
 same clock speed because the compiler is running single thread?  Would php
 processing be benefited by quad a quad core over a dual core.  If not, then
 I guess I should just purchase a dual core chip and save the cabbage up
 front and wattage to boot.

On the compiling front, when running make do this:make -j num
of cores  to speed up ure compiles.

Ans no it probably wouldn't speed up individual runs of Php
scrips/apps BUT it will allow you to run more parallel instances
without a performance hit.
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Re: Xeon Quad Core (Was: Server Freezing Solid)

2008-11-25 Thread Ross Cameron
On Tue, Nov 25, 2008 at 3:11 AM, Josh Carroll [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 I always thought AMD was Intel compatible.

 In this case, it's the reverse. Intel's EM64T extensions are compatible
 with AMD's X86-64.

Also don't forget that SSE5 instruction set for x86 was entirely
designed by AMD.
   http://developer.amd.com/cpu/SSE5/Pages/default.aspx
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Xeon Quad Core (Was: Server Freezing Solid)

2008-11-24 Thread Chris Maness
Since a Xeon Quad Core is a 64bit processor, would it work ok with 
FreeBSD? Or would the adm64 release be better for that chip?


Thanks,
Chris Maness
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Re: Xeon Quad Core (Was: Server Freezing Solid)

2008-11-24 Thread Valentin Bud
On Mon, Nov 24, 2008 at 8:41 PM, Chris Maness [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 Since a Xeon Quad Core is a 64bit processor, would it work ok with FreeBSD?
 Or would the adm64 release be better for that chip?

Hello Chris,

I had a server with an Intel Xeon Quad Core CPU that was running FBSD 7.0
since the day 7.0 was released ( i386 ). Never had a problem with it.

Yesterday i moved the server on FBSD 7.0 amd64 to use ZFS. Until now
it works like a charm.


a nice day,
v


 Thanks,
 Chris Maness
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Re: Xeon Quad Core (Was: Server Freezing Solid)

2008-11-24 Thread Ott Köstner

Chris Maness wrote:
Since a Xeon Quad Core is a 64bit processor, would it work ok with 
FreeBSD? Or would the adm64 release be better for that chip?
I would recommend using amd64 FreeBSD port in this case. Some 
applications are significantly faster in 64 bit mode than in 32 bit mode.
Personally, I am useing amd64 FreeBSD on several Intel machines. Very 
good indeed.


Greetings,
O.K.

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Re: Xeon Quad Core (Was: Server Freezing Solid)

2008-11-24 Thread Wojciech Puchar
Since a Xeon Quad Core is a 64bit processor, would it work ok with FreeBSD? 
Or would the adm64 release be better for that chip?


don't be suggested by amd in port name. it's for AMD64-compatible 
processor, for example your xeon

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Re: Xeon Quad Core (Was: Server Freezing Solid)

2008-11-24 Thread Chris Maness

Wojciech Puchar wrote:
Since a Xeon Quad Core is a 64bit processor, would it work ok with 
FreeBSD? Or would the adm64 release be better for that chip?


don't be suggested by amd in port name. it's for AMD64-compatible 
processor, for example your xeon
Sorry, I wasn't very clear.  I am currently running FreeBSD 7.0 the 
regular i386 release.  I would prefer to keep it that way if migration 
to the 64bit release would mean rebuilding from scratch (there is 
probably an easier way to convert an i386 release to a amd64 release).  
Another poster seemed to indicate that the i386 release would run just 
fine on a quad core chip.


Would there be a major performance gain with amd64 over that of the i386 
build on a Xeon Quad Core?


Sorry, all this stuff is rather new to me as I have been running ancient 
gear for a while.


Chris
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Re: Xeon Quad Core (Was: Server Freezing Solid)

2008-11-24 Thread Roland Smith
On Mon, Nov 24, 2008 at 11:37:25AM -0800, Chris Maness wrote:
 Wojciech Puchar wrote:
  Since a Xeon Quad Core is a 64bit processor, would it work ok with 
  FreeBSD? Or would the adm64 release be better for that chip?
 
  don't be suggested by amd in port name. it's for AMD64-compatible 
  processor, for example your xeon
 Sorry, I wasn't very clear.  I am currently running FreeBSD 7.0 the 
 regular i386 release.  I would prefer to keep it that way if migration 
 to the 64bit release would mean rebuilding from scratch 

You'll have to remove and re-install all ports to make them 64-bits as well.

 (there is 
 probably an easier way to convert an i386 release to a amd64 release).

Not really. You could do a cross-build to another partition, but you'd
have to have one available.
  
 Another poster seemed to indicate that the i386 release would run just 
 fine on a quad core chip.

It should.

 Would there be a major performance gain with amd64 over that of the i386 
 build on a Xeon Quad Core?

It will depend on your workload. If your machines were strapped fo
address space on i386, switching to amd64 (with enough RAM) will help.

In long (64-bit) mode, amd64 compatible CPUs have more registers
available, so that will speed up things. On the other hand, pointers and
longs are 64-bit numbers instead of 32-bit, which will make the code
somewhat larger. Run some benchmarks that are relevant for you on i386
and re-run them after you've switched to amd64 to know for sure.

I've been running amd64 since 5.4 on both Athlon64 and recently Core 2
Quad without problems.

Roland
-- 
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Re: Xeon Quad Core (Was: Server Freezing Solid)

2008-11-24 Thread Josh Carroll
 Sorry, I wasn't very clear.  I am currently running FreeBSD 7.0 the regular
 i386 release.  I would prefer to keep it that way if migration to the 64bit
 release would mean rebuilding from scratch (there is probably an easier way
 to convert an i386 release to a amd64 release).  Another poster seemed to
 indicate that the i386 release would run just fine on a quad core chip.

Yes, i386 will run just fine on a 64-bit Xeon. And no, there isn't an
easier (well,
one could argue it's easy, but tedious) way to convert to an amd64 release.

 Would there be a major performance gain with amd64 over that of the i386
 build on a Xeon Quad Core?

It depends entirely on your workload. Some things benefit, others may actually
slow down. One example that seems to benefit in general is multimedia type
applications (e.g. media encoding/decoding/transcoding).

Josh
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Re: Xeon Quad Core (Was: Server Freezing Solid)

2008-11-24 Thread Chris Maness

Roland Smith wrote:

On Mon, Nov 24, 2008 at 11:37:25AM -0800, Chris Maness wrote:
  

Wojciech Puchar wrote:

Since a Xeon Quad Core is a 64bit processor, would it work ok with 
FreeBSD? Or would the adm64 release be better for that chip?

don't be suggested by amd in port name. it's for AMD64-compatible 
processor, for example your xeon
  
Sorry, I wasn't very clear.  I am currently running FreeBSD 7.0 the 
regular i386 release.  I would prefer to keep it that way if migration 
to the 64bit release would mean rebuilding from scratch 



You'll have to remove and re-install all ports to make them 64-bits as well.

  
(there is 
probably an easier way to convert an i386 release to a amd64 release).



Not really. You could do a cross-build to another partition, but you'd
have to have one available.
  
  
Another poster seemed to indicate that the i386 release would run just 
fine on a quad core chip.



It should.

  
Would there be a major performance gain with amd64 over that of the i386 
build on a Xeon Quad Core?



It will depend on your workload. If your machines were strapped fo
address space on i386, switching to amd64 (with enough RAM) will help.

In long (64-bit) mode, amd64 compatible CPUs have more registers
available, so that will speed up things. On the other hand, pointers and
longs are 64-bit numbers instead of 32-bit, which will make the code
somewhat larger. Run some benchmarks that are relevant for you on i386
and re-run them after you've switched to amd64 to know for sure.

I've been running amd64 since 5.4 on both Athlon64 and recently Core 2
Quad without problems.

Roland
  
Thanks guys.  It is not a high load server, so I think sticking to i386 
sounds like my best option.


Chris
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Re: Xeon Quad Core (Was: Server Freezing Solid)

2008-11-24 Thread Chris Maness

Roland Smith wrote:

On Mon, Nov 24, 2008 at 11:37:25AM -0800, Chris Maness wrote:
  

Wojciech Puchar wrote:

Since a Xeon Quad Core is a 64bit processor, would it work ok with 
FreeBSD? Or would the adm64 release be better for that chip?

don't be suggested by amd in port name. it's for AMD64-compatible 
processor, for example your xeon
  
Sorry, I wasn't very clear.  I am currently running FreeBSD 7.0 the 
regular i386 release.  I would prefer to keep it that way if migration 
to the 64bit release would mean rebuilding from scratch 



You'll have to remove and re-install all ports to make them 64-bits as well.

  
(there is 
probably an easier way to convert an i386 release to a amd64 release).



Not really. You could do a cross-build to another partition, but you'd
have to have one available.
  
  
Another poster seemed to indicate that the i386 release would run just 
fine on a quad core chip.



It should.

  
Would there be a major performance gain with amd64 over that of the i386 
build on a Xeon Quad Core?



It will depend on your workload. If your machines were strapped fo
address space on i386, switching to amd64 (with enough RAM) will help.

In long (64-bit) mode, amd64 compatible CPUs have more registers
available, so that will speed up things. On the other hand, pointers and
longs are 64-bit numbers instead of 32-bit, which will make the code
somewhat larger. Run some benchmarks that are relevant for you on i386
and re-run them after you've switched to amd64 to know for sure.

I've been running amd64 since 5.4 on both Athlon64 and recently Core 2
Quad without problems.

Roland
  
Another thought.  Would a Quad Core chip help with compiling 
applications -- or would it be the same as a dual core or single core 
chip running at the same clock speed because the compiler is running 
single thread?  Would php processing be benefited by quad a quad core 
over a dual core.  If not, then I guess I should just purchase a dual 
core chip and save the cabbage up front and wattage to boot.


Thanks,
Chris Maness
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Re: Xeon Quad Core (Was: Server Freezing Solid)

2008-11-24 Thread Roland Smith
On Mon, Nov 24, 2008 at 12:49:37PM -0800, Chris Maness wrote:
  Would there be a major performance gain with amd64 over that of the i386 
  build on a Xeon Quad Core?
  
 
  It will depend on your workload. If your machines were strapped fo
  address space on i386, switching to amd64 (with enough RAM) will help.
 
  In long (64-bit) mode, amd64 compatible CPUs have more registers
  available, so that will speed up things. On the other hand, pointers and
  longs are 64-bit numbers instead of 32-bit, which will make the code
  somewhat larger. Run some benchmarks that are relevant for you on i386
  and re-run them after you've switched to amd64 to know for sure.
snip
 Another thought.  Would a Quad Core chip help with compiling 
 applications -- or would it be the same as a dual core or single core 
 chip running at the same clock speed because the compiler is running 
 single thread? 

Again, it depends. If you have to compile a lot of C files via a
Makefile without much interdependencies you could start make with the
-j 8 flag so it can start 8 jobs concurrently. (The number of cores x
2 seems to be the best option).

 Would php processing be benefited by quad a quad core 
 over a dual core.  If not, then I guess I should just purchase a dual 
 core chip and save the cabbage up front and wattage to boot.

It could very well benefit. It depends where the bottleneck is in your
current setup. It e.g. depends on how many apache and php instances
you have running, and how you have compiled apache. Apache 22 is
standard compiled with the prefork MPM, which starts 2 processes by
default, and can start up to 16 IIRC (both numbers are configurable). A
quad processor could make this run faster as long as the rest of the
system can keep up.

Roland
-- 
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Re: Xeon Quad Core (Was: Server Freezing Solid)

2008-11-24 Thread Josh Carroll
 I always thought AMD was Intel compatible.

In this case, it's the reverse. Intel's EM64T extensions are compatible
with AMD's X86-64.

Josh
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RE: Server Freezing Solid

2008-11-12 Thread Ted Mittelstaedt


 -Original Message-
 From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Chris Maness
 Sent: Tuesday, November 11, 2008 6:43 AM
 To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
 Subject: Server Freezing Solid
 
 
 I am having a new problem.  I have been running FreeBSD for years with
 no crashing.  All of a sudden my server starts crashing with no panic
 messages.  I am suspecting hardware because there are no messages, but
 the CPU temp is fine.
 

Take the machine down, take it outside, take the cover off.  Liberally
blow all dust out with canned air.  Unseat and reseat ALL connectors,
including power, including CPU out of it's socket, including ram.
Turn it back on and make sure the power supply fan is operating at full
speed.

Ted
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Re: Server Freezing Solid

2008-11-12 Thread Chris Maness
On Wed, Nov 12, 2008 at 6:06 AM, Steve Bertrand [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 Ted Mittelstaedt wrote:

 I atually bought a small portable compressor (designed for running
 a nailgun, basically) for this purpose.  $80 at Harbor Freight for
 a new one, you can get them cheaper used.  The canned air is really
 expensive, you end up using a half a can on a PC.

 If you do the compressor, make sure you put a regulator on your
 blow gun: 80-120 psi of air coming out of a blowgun is capabable of
 blowing components off the circuit boards along with the dust.

 The compressor is also very useful for blowing out the air
 conditioner coils every year, as well as the refrigerator coils
 on the refrigerator.  Doing just this will pay for the compressor
 in a few years in energy savings.

 The compressor suggestion is a great idea Ted.

 I would like to point out that there is usually a considerable amount of
 moisture that condenses as the air is being compressed into the tank.

 For this reason, I'd advise that either you leave the PC unplugged for
 10 minutes or so after you've cleaned it to let any residual moisture
 dry, or purchase an inline water filter.

 The compressor also makes it quite a bit more convenient for topping up
 your vehicles tire air pressure (you know you don't do this regularly
 enough ;)

 Steve


It was just cleaned a couple of months ago, and I think I will evoke
the old proverb do me wrong once shame on you -- do me wrong twice
shame on me.  When I put the server on a couple of months ago, I ran
into a couple of post stating that the Abit VP6 had issues with
components that fail.  This seems to have happened.  The old 1U box I
switched the hardrive to yesterday is working flawlessly.  However,
this machine is a little on the underpowered side.

Chris Maness
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RE: Server Freezing Solid

2008-11-12 Thread Ted Mittelstaedt


 -Original Message-
 From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Jeremy Chadwick
 Sent: Wednesday, November 12, 2008 2:07 AM
 To: Ted Mittelstaedt
 Cc: Chris Maness; freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
 Subject: Re: Server Freezing Solid


 On Wed, Nov 12, 2008 at 02:06:12AM -0800, Ted Mittelstaedt wrote:
   -Original Message-
   From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
   [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Chris Maness
   Sent: Tuesday, November 11, 2008 6:43 AM
   To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
   Subject: Server Freezing Solid
  
  
   I am having a new problem.  I have been running FreeBSD for years with
   no crashing.  All of a sudden my server starts crashing with no panic
   messages.  I am suspecting hardware because there are no messages, but
   the CPU temp is fine.
  
 
  Take the machine down, take it outside, take the cover off.  Liberally
  blow all dust out with canned air.  Unseat and reseat ALL connectors,
  including power, including CPU out of it's socket, including ram.
  Turn it back on and make sure the power supply fan is operating at full
  speed.

 This is excellent advice.  I do this exact procedure once a year,
 usually before summer, to all desktop systems I have.


I atually bought a small portable compressor (designed for running
a nailgun, basically) for this purpose.  $80 at Harbor Freight for
a new one, you can get them cheaper used.  The canned air is really
expensive, you end up using a half a can on a PC.

If you do the compressor, make sure you put a regulator on your
blow gun: 80-120 psi of air coming out of a blowgun is capabable of
blowing components off the circuit boards along with the dust.

The compressor is also very useful for blowing out the air
conditioner coils every year, as well as the refrigerator coils
on the refrigerator.  Doing just this will pay for the compressor
in a few years in energy savings.

Ted

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Re: Server Freezing Solid

2008-11-12 Thread Michael Powell
Chris Maness wrote:
[snip]
 For this reason, I'd advise that either you leave the PC unplugged for
 10 minutes or so after you've cleaned it to let any residual moisture
 dry, or purchase an inline water filter.

Should always put a drier on a compressor. You'll learn the hard way if you
invest in pneumatic tools; you will kill them if you don't.

[snip]
 I ran
 into a couple of post stating that the Abit VP6 had issues with
 components that fail.  This seems to have happened.  The old 1U box I
 switched the hardrive to yesterday is working flawlessly.  However,
 this machine is a little on the underpowered side.
 

Without actually checking, if memory serves there were a number of products
from that time frame that used inferior electrolytic filter caps. You can
easily spot these by examining the top where there is metal showing through
in the center surrounded by the plastic wrapper. In the caps that fail the
plastic wrapper part will be swelled up and puffy looking, possibly even so
far as to have cracks with goo oozing out of them.

I have an Abit KD7A powering a small home development server that I've been
really lucky with, it just sits there and keeps on doing it's thing. But I
have a feeling you may have hit the bad cap problem with the VP6.

-Mike



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Re: Server Freezing Solid

2008-11-12 Thread Jeremy Chadwick
On Wed, Nov 12, 2008 at 02:06:12AM -0800, Ted Mittelstaedt wrote:
  -Original Message-
  From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
  [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Chris Maness
  Sent: Tuesday, November 11, 2008 6:43 AM
  To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
  Subject: Server Freezing Solid
  
  
  I am having a new problem.  I have been running FreeBSD for years with
  no crashing.  All of a sudden my server starts crashing with no panic
  messages.  I am suspecting hardware because there are no messages, but
  the CPU temp is fine.
  
 
 Take the machine down, take it outside, take the cover off.  Liberally
 blow all dust out with canned air.  Unseat and reseat ALL connectors,
 including power, including CPU out of it's socket, including ram.
 Turn it back on and make sure the power supply fan is operating at full
 speed.

This is excellent advice.  I do this exact procedure once a year,
usually before summer, to all desktop systems I have.

-- 
| Jeremy Chadwickjdc at parodius.com |
| Parodius Networking   http://www.parodius.com/ |
| UNIX Systems Administrator  Mountain View, CA, USA |
| Making life hard for others since 1977.  PGP: 4BD6C0CB |

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Re: Server Freezing Solid

2008-11-12 Thread Steve Bertrand
Michael Powell wrote:
 Chris Maness wrote:
 [snip]
 For this reason, I'd advise that either you leave the PC unplugged for
 10 minutes or so after you've cleaned it to let any residual moisture
 dry, or purchase an inline water filter.
 
 Should always put a drier on a compressor. You'll learn the hard way if you
 invest in pneumatic tools; you will kill them if you don't.

...but...how can I convince my wife that I need new tools when my
existing ones last forever?

Steve

(just joking of course)
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Re: Server Freezing Solid

2008-11-12 Thread Erik Trulsson
On Wed, Nov 12, 2008 at 11:26:15AM -0500, Michael Powell wrote:
 Chris Maness wrote:
 [snip]
  For this reason, I'd advise that either you leave the PC unplugged for
  10 minutes or so after you've cleaned it to let any residual moisture
  dry, or purchase an inline water filter.
 
 Should always put a drier on a compressor. You'll learn the hard way if you
 invest in pneumatic tools; you will kill them if you don't.
 
 [snip]
  I ran
  into a couple of post stating that the Abit VP6 had issues with
  components that fail.  This seems to have happened.  The old 1U box I
  switched the hardrive to yesterday is working flawlessly.  However,
  this machine is a little on the underpowered side.
  
 
 Without actually checking, if memory serves there were a number of products
 from that time frame that used inferior electrolytic filter caps. You can
 easily spot these by examining the top where there is metal showing through
 in the center surrounded by the plastic wrapper. In the caps that fail the
 plastic wrapper part will be swelled up and puffy looking, possibly even so
 far as to have cracks with goo oozing out of them.
 
 I have an Abit KD7A powering a small home development server that I've been
 really lucky with, it just sits there and keeps on doing it's thing. But I
 have a feeling you may have hit the bad cap problem with the VP6.

See http://www.badcaps.net for much more information about problems with bad
capacitors, and yes the Abit VP6 is one of the boards that commonly exhibits 
that particular problem.





-- 
Insert your favourite quote here.
Erik Trulsson
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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RE: Server Freezing Solid

2008-11-12 Thread Bob McConnell
On Behalf Of Steve Bertrand
 Michael Powell wrote:
 Chris Maness wrote:
 [snip]
 For this reason, I'd advise that either you leave the PC unplugged
for
 10 minutes or so after you've cleaned it to let any residual
moisture
 dry, or purchase an inline water filter.
 
 Should always put a drier on a compressor. You'll learn the hard way
if you
 invest in pneumatic tools; you will kill them if you don't.
 
 ...but...how can I convince my wife that I need new tools when my
 existing ones last forever?

Well, if you actually used them once in a while, and even did something
she found useful, they wouldn't last so long and she wouldn't complain
so loudly (B^).

Bob McConnell
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Re: Server Freezing Solid

2008-11-12 Thread Steve Bertrand
Ted Mittelstaedt wrote:

 I atually bought a small portable compressor (designed for running
 a nailgun, basically) for this purpose.  $80 at Harbor Freight for
 a new one, you can get them cheaper used.  The canned air is really
 expensive, you end up using a half a can on a PC.
 
 If you do the compressor, make sure you put a regulator on your
 blow gun: 80-120 psi of air coming out of a blowgun is capabable of
 blowing components off the circuit boards along with the dust.
 
 The compressor is also very useful for blowing out the air
 conditioner coils every year, as well as the refrigerator coils
 on the refrigerator.  Doing just this will pay for the compressor
 in a few years in energy savings.

The compressor suggestion is a great idea Ted.

I would like to point out that there is usually a considerable amount of
moisture that condenses as the air is being compressed into the tank.

For this reason, I'd advise that either you leave the PC unplugged for
10 minutes or so after you've cleaned it to let any residual moisture
dry, or purchase an inline water filter.

The compressor also makes it quite a bit more convenient for topping up
your vehicles tire air pressure (you know you don't do this regularly
enough ;)

Steve
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RE: Server Freezing Solid

2008-11-12 Thread Ted Mittelstaedt


 -Original Message-
 From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Michael Powell
 Sent: Wednesday, November 12, 2008 8:26 AM
 To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
 Subject: Re: Server Freezing Solid


 Chris Maness wrote:
 [snip]
  For this reason, I'd advise that either you leave the PC unplugged for
  10 minutes or so after you've cleaned it to let any residual moisture
  dry, or purchase an inline water filter.

 Should always put a drier on a compressor. You'll learn the hard
 way if you
 invest in pneumatic tools; you will kill them if you don't.


Really high quality pneumatic tools (industrial grade) can be completely
disassembled, cleaned, and repaired.  The consumer grade stuff usually
can't.

In large shops, the usual procedure is to distribute the air with
really long runs of pipe and put water traps at the end - that's
probably what your thinking of with a drier.  The traps fill up
and every once in a while you open their petcocks and they pee
old sock-smelling water out on your shoes.

With a small pancake compressor it is generally satisfactory to
run it without a drier, and at the end of the day, pour a couple teaspoons
of air tool oil into the tool air intake then reconnnect the airline and
give it a puff to distribute the oil.


 [snip]
  I ran
  into a couple of post stating that the Abit VP6 had issues with
  components that fail.  This seems to have happened.  The old 1U box I
  switched the hardrive to yesterday is working flawlessly.  However,
  this machine is a little on the underpowered side.
 

 Without actually checking, if memory serves there were a number
 of products
 from that time frame that used inferior electrolytic filter caps. You can

The story I read was that the Chinese companies decided to get into making
electrolytic caps a number of years ago.  They sent spies into the
Japanese companies to steal the electrolyte formula.  Unknown to
them the Japanese had anticipated this and so each batch of
electrolyte was secretly treated with a stabilizer chemical that only the
top chemists in the company knew about.  The production chemists
were unaware of it.  When the Chinese firms stole the electrolytic
formula, they produced caps that lacked this stabilizer.  The result
was the electrolyte broke down and the cap split.

I don't know if it's a true story or not, but it sounded good!

Ted

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Server Freezing Solid

2008-11-11 Thread Chris Maness
I am having a new problem.  I have been running FreeBSD for years with
no crashing.  All of a sudden my server starts crashing with no panic
messages.  I am suspecting hardware because there are no messages, but
the CPU temp is fine.

Weird --maybe bad RAM?

Chris Maness
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Re: Server Freezing Solid

2008-11-11 Thread Roland Smith
On Tue, Nov 11, 2008 at 06:42:39AM -0800, Chris Maness wrote:
 I am having a new problem.  I have been running FreeBSD for years with
 no crashing.  All of a sudden my server starts crashing with no panic
 messages.  I am suspecting hardware because there are no messages, but
 the CPU temp is fine.
 
 Weird --maybe bad RAM?

Could be. But you can test RAM with e.g. memtest86.

Or it could be a bad component (e.g. a capacitator) somewhere on the
motherboard or in the powersupply. Or a spike or drop in the external power.

Roland
-- 
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Re: Server Freezing Solid

2008-11-11 Thread Jeremy Chadwick
On Tue, Nov 11, 2008 at 07:40:47AM -0800, Chris Maness wrote:
 Roland Smith wrote:
 On Tue, Nov 11, 2008 at 06:42:39AM -0800, Chris Maness wrote:
   
 I am having a new problem.  I have been running FreeBSD for years with
 no crashing.  All of a sudden my server starts crashing with no panic
 messages.  I am suspecting hardware because there are no messages, but
 the CPU temp is fine.

 Weird --maybe bad RAM?
 

 Could be. But you can test RAM with e.g. memtest86.

 Or it could be a bad component (e.g. a capacitator) somewhere on the
 motherboard or in the powersupply. Or a spike or drop in the external power.

 Roland
   
 I have swapped the HD back to the old box.  I am up and running again.   
 If it doesn't crash today, I can be certain the ol' grey mare needs to  
 be taken out back and shot.  Dual PIII on a Abit server board c. 2000.

 I hear that the Abit boards have issues with components.

 Anyone recommend a cheap (not necessarily the latest technology) mobo  
 for my server?  I am running a low load SoHo server here at the house.

If you live in the US and would like a server-class Supermicro PDSMi+
board (just the board, although I could throw in some memory if you'd
like), I have a spare which I could give to you for free.  I just
upgraded my home FreeBSD box to an X7SBA, so the older PDSMi+ sits in
its box (I purchased it retail, so it comes with manual, cables, etc.).
These boards retail for about US$240, and work very well with FreeBSD.

Link to board:

http://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/Xeon3000/3000/PDSMi+.cfm

Let me know.

-- 
| Jeremy Chadwickjdc at parodius.com |
| Parodius Networking   http://www.parodius.com/ |
| UNIX Systems Administrator  Mountain View, CA, USA |
| Making life hard for others since 1977.  PGP: 4BD6C0CB |

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Re: Server Freezing Solid

2008-11-11 Thread Chris Maness

Roland Smith wrote:

On Tue, Nov 11, 2008 at 06:42:39AM -0800, Chris Maness wrote:
  

I am having a new problem.  I have been running FreeBSD for years with
no crashing.  All of a sudden my server starts crashing with no panic
messages.  I am suspecting hardware because there are no messages, but
the CPU temp is fine.

Weird --maybe bad RAM?



Could be. But you can test RAM with e.g. memtest86.

Or it could be a bad component (e.g. a capacitator) somewhere on the
motherboard or in the powersupply. Or a spike or drop in the external power.

Roland
  
I have swapped the HD back to the old box.  I am up and running again.  
If it doesn't crash today, I can be certain the ol' grey mare needs to 
be taken out back and shot.  Dual PIII on a Abit server board c. 2000.


I hear that the Abit boards have issues with components.

Anyone recommend a cheap (not necessarily the latest technology) mobo 
for my server?  I am running a low load SoHo server here at the house.


Chris Maness
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