Re: Big troubles running FreeBSD on a Shuttle nForce2

2004-01-20 Thread anubis
On Tue, 20 Jan 2004 02:26 am, Raphael Dinge wrote:
 Hi,

 I've installed a long ago FreeBSD 5.1 on my mother's
 computer which is a shuttle with nvidia nforce2
 motherboard.
 The computer crashes for reasons I can't explain.
 Since 5.2 was out, I installed it, and the problems
 are still consistent.

 The problem is that the computer is crashing (freezing or
 suddenly rebooting). The problem occurs on both 5.1 and
 5.2.

 - In console vga text mode, the computer did not ever crash,
and I was available to 'make install' via ssh from my home
a big variety of different programs,
 - When I launch X, the problems comes, what ever window
manager I used, namely WindowMaker and KDE 3.
 - Crash can occurs when moving a window, launching an
application, clicking on a link in a web browser,
 - The computer is stable running with X if I don't do
anything with the GUI. I can still use ssh to administrate
from my home flawlessly.
 - Crashes are very likely to freeze the computer or to make
it reboot suddenly. Sometimes it will just crash X,
 - Sometimes when X crash, I can see that KDE did catch
a Bad drawable error (this is all the local machine, no
distributed X),
 - Sometimes when moving windows, I can see small horizontal
lines as if the screen was not refreshed well,
 - I was thinking that it did come from the kernel modules,
so I tried :
  - with or without acpi.ko (in 5.1 since acpi
won't run on 5.2 on this computer now) didn't change,
  - with various X card driver, namely 'vesa', 'nv' and
'nvidia' from the ports, didn't change
  - I didn't enable sound kernel module for now
 - Enabling nvidia.ko in loader.conf always stall computer
startup after keyboard probe (did not try on 5.2)
 - I don't use the onchip network controller (not supported
in 5.1), and did bought a network controller running
with sis, flawlessly.

 I must admit I'm completely lost with that problem, since
 I have the same computer at home, but my mother's computer
 was bought 1 year later after mine.

 I don't know from where to start, (hardware test, bios
 params, bios revision, nforce2 motherboard support) since it
 seems I can't find panic log (and I don't know if they exist
 anyway). Googling and searching list archive did not
 give me more informations.

 Any advice will be greatly apreciated.

 Many thanks,


There are a number of issues with this kind of machine and they arent limited 
to freebsd.  We have a number of these machines running windas at work.  1 
works perfectly and the others are a bit flakey.  We had a long look at this 
problem  and what it comes down to is these machines have shared memory for 
the video.  They are very fussy about what kind of ram they use.  This is why 
when you start using the video heavily there is problems.  

Our good machine used good ram and the other funky ones use unsupported ram.

There are 2 possible solutions.  One solution is to look at the nvidia site 
and only use the ram they suggest for igp boards.  Second solution is put in 
a seperate video card.  

Note that there have been revisions on these boards so the one bought 1 year 
later may have significant changes to the bios and the chips such as the on 
board nics.   The nforce 2 boards are great feature wise but they are a bit 
temperamental.  I want to beat them like a red headed step child sometimes.







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Re: Big troubles running FreeBSD on a Shuttle nForce2

2004-01-20 Thread Raphael Dinge
Hi Anubis,

We had a long look at this problem  and what it comes
down to is these machines have shared memory for the
video.

There are 2 possible solutions.  One solution is to look 
at the nvidia site and only use the ram they suggest for 
igp boards.  Second solution is put in a seperate video 
card.
Those solutions sounds good to me.
Is there a sysutil that would heavily test the ram
in my very specific case ?
Many thanks for the quick answer,

--
+===
Raphael Dinge   | Ohm Force
DSP developer  Software designer   | DA Software
mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] | www.ohmforce.com
+===
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Re: Big troubles running FreeBSD on a Shuttle nForce2

2004-01-20 Thread Gautam Gopalakrishnan
On Tue, Jan 20, 2004 at 03:09:10PM +0100, Raphael Dinge wrote:
 Those solutions sounds good to me.
 Is there a sysutil that would heavily test the ram
 in my very specific case ?

http://www.memtest86.com/

Gautam


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Re: Big troubles running FreeBSD on a Shuttle nForce2

2004-01-20 Thread Lewis Thompson
On Tue, Jan 20, 2004 at 09:08:53PM +, anubis wrote:
 On Tue, 20 Jan 2004 02:26 am, Raphael Dinge wrote:
  I've installed a long ago FreeBSD 5.1 on my mother's computer which
  is a shuttle with nvidia nforce2 motherboard.  The computer crashes
  for reasons I can't explain.  Since 5.2 was out, I installed it, and
  the problems are still consistent.

 There are a number of issues with this kind of machine and they arent
 limited to freebsd.  We have a number of these machines running windas
 at work.  1 works perfectly and the others are a bit flakey.  We had a
 long look at this problem  and what it comes down to is these machines
 have shared memory for the video.  They are very fussy about what kind
 of ram they use.  This is why when you start using the video heavily
 there is problems.

 Our good machine used good ram and the other funky ones use
 unsupported ram.

 There are 2 possible solutions.  One solution is to look at the nvidia
 site and only use the ram they suggest for igp boards.  Second
 solution is put in a seperate video card.

I am using a stick of Crucial 256MB DDR266 PC2100 RAM.  I picked it up a
few months ago from www.ebuyer.com for £29.99.

  I have no problems with this, so it might be worth checking out.

  What I'd suggest is swap the RAM from your Shuttle to your Mum's
Shuttle and see how you get on.  If they switch around you can really be
sure it is the RAM.

  Best wishes,

-lewiz.

-- 
I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now.  --Bob Dylan, 1964.

-| msn:[EMAIL PROTECTED] | jabber:[EMAIL PROTECTED] | url:www.lewiz.org |-


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