Dear Sirs.
I use FreeBSD 5.3-STABLE, most recently updated and built-world today. I
realised strange behaviour with the used ASUS CUR-DLS mainboard and
FreeBSD 5.3-{RELEASE|STABLE}.
SMP is impossible on this mainboard with FreeBSD 5.3. With or without
ACPI enabled, the machine crashes after a while (this 'while' is in the
range of several minutes up to a whole day). The crash with SMP enabled
is as follows. The system gets stuck, I can move windows around, but I
can't open new xterms or other applications, network is dead then. The,
after a while, the system reboots or gets completely stuck without any
error.
In some rare cases I 'suspect' the machine's crashing and I'm
able to
switch to console and see some debugger messages, most time they are
heavily truncated.
Also common on this machine (either in UP or SMP) is a not working
single user mode. Doing a make installworld dies with a stuck console,
typing Ctrl-T reports in nearly 100% of all cases process_foo [biowrd]
or something similar. Starting single user kernel from loader without
SMP and without APIC seems to solve problem, but compiling a kernel
without apic remains the machine in a weird unuseable state (hanging
X11/mouse etc.).
Another strange thing is enabling/disabling USB, SIO ports and in what
slot to put a 64 Bit PCI 1GBit NIC (intel 1000/Pro). Disabling both
sio-ports makes the kernel stuck after initialising the SCSI controller
all the way. Swapping NIC from on to the other 64 Bit slot decides
wheter I can use a further 32 Bit add-on card (audio board) or not! This
seems to be a IRQ routing problem which is well known to me since I
utilize a TYAN Thunder 2500 mainboard with FreeBSD (without ACPI).
I did several PR-reports in the past and i was told my problems were
hardware related but I think this is not the truth since in UP the
machine is stable (except single user mode) and I get weird behaviour
with APIC off (stable, useable single user mode, non working multiuser
mode). I also get a stable single user mode when inserting another VGA
(PCI type) video board: single user mode is stable, not getting stuck,
but machine dies immedieately and reboots when booting the FreeBSD
kernel in every variation (with/without apic/acpi/up/smp).
Before reporting again masses of faulty bug reports or nonsense not
suitable for gurus or developers,
I would ask you whether someone out here utilizing the ASUS CUR-DLS
mainboard and using FreeBSD 5.3-XXX has the same problems or not.
Many thanks in advance.
Oliver