RE: [Questions] What hardware do you use ?
You might get more useful information by asking what it doesn't work with or what to avoid. The list will be shorter. Nicole Harrington <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent by: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 07/20/2002 07:05 nite To: Josef Grosch <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: [Questions] What hardware do you use ? I'm not on the heckers list at the moment, but the frustrating thing I have found regarding that question is once I have finaly tested something (most often motherboards) and have found it to be stable, its no longer available as the manufacturer has moved on to some other newer board. Nicole On 10-May-02 Unnamed Administration sources reported Josef Grosch said : > > This question came up at last night BAFUG meeting. What hardware do people > use and/or recommend? Specifically, if you were going to build a machine, > using commonly available parts and just to run a generic kernel, what > ethernet, video, motherboards, etc, would you use and/or recommend? > > > Josef > > -- > Josef Grosch | Another day closer to a | FreeBSD 4.5 > [EMAIL PROTECTED] | Micro$oft free world | www.bafug.org > > ___ > Questions mailing list > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > http://bafug.org/mailman/listinfo/questions |\ __ /| (`\ | o_o |__ ) ) // \\ Daemon Technologies(tm) | Phone: 510.895.9667 [EMAIL PROTECTED]| ---(((---(((--- - Powered by FreeBSD - Email, DNS, SiteHosting, FTP Services, Dedicated Servers, Co-Location, and a Lot More -- " Daemons" will now be known as "spiritual guides" -Politically Correct UNIX Page ___ Questions mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bafug.org/mailman/listinfo/questions To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message
Re: What hardware do you use ?
On 2002-05-13 14:09 -0700, Doug White <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On 13 May 2002, David [ISO-8859-1] Siebörger wrote: > > > That's hardly the worst of it. The ServerWorks OSB4 ATA controller > > has been known to cause data corruption with Seagate drives. > > Have you isolated it to Seagates only? our problematic rackables have > seagate drives, but I don't have any other mfr drives (maxtor, ibm) to > test it with. I have a possible problem with the Tyan S2518GN and a Maxtor 80GB disk. Didn't have time to play with it--I just shoved in a Promise ATA/133 controller and now the disk is really fast. I haven't tried updating the BIOS from the default v106 yet. Greg, not very helpful -- Gregory S. SutterFnord. mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.zer0.org/~gsutter/ hkp://wwwkeys.pgp.net/0x845DFEDD msg34513/pgp0.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: What hardware do you use ?
On Tue, 14 May 2002, [iso-8859-1] David Siebörger wrote: > > Have you isolated it to Seagates only? our problematic rackables have > > seagate drives, but I don't have any other mfr drives (maxtor, ibm) to > > test it with. > > No, that's from the Alan Cox posting I mentioned. I'm afraid didn't > have any drives of other brands handy so I gave up on the IDE > interface and went all-SCSI. Here's another report of the problem, > but also with a Seagate disk: > > >http://docs.freebsd.org/cgi/getmsg.cgi?fetch=577071+0+archive/2002/freebsd-hackers/20020224.freebsd-hackers I'll add it to the doc file. One of our other admins took some time to chit-chat with rackable about their situation. Apparently that and some other weird problems are firmware bugs that Tyan is working on firmware to fix. Not sure if Intel plans to do the same changes once they've been hashed out by Tyan and other ServerWorks users. (Intel now owns ServerWorks I believe...) > >On the SCB2 Intel has a big warning in the manual to not use that IDE > > interface for system disks. I don't see it in the STL2 manual so I guess > > they learned their lesson later on. > > We don't have any SCB2 systems here, but its specs say it has a > Promise controller, rather than the ServerWorks chip on our STL2. It still has the OSB4 IDE interface exposed on the board. The SR1200 chassis uses the ATA RAID connectors though, and the build manuals say to use the RAID channels, yadda yadda. The CDROM uses the secondary channel off the OSB4 I think, I'd have to check the dmesg again. The ATA RAID is UDMA/100 so it's a huge improvement either way :) Doug White| FreeBSD: The Power to Serve [EMAIL PROTECTED] | www.FreeBSD.org To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message
Re: What hardware do you use ?
On Mon 2002-05-13 (14:09), Doug White wrote: > On 13 May 2002, David [ISO-8859-1] Siebörger wrote: > > > That's hardly the worst of it. The ServerWorks OSB4 ATA controller > > has been known to cause data corruption with Seagate drives. > > Have you isolated it to Seagates only? our problematic rackables have > seagate drives, but I don't have any other mfr drives (maxtor, ibm) to > test it with. No, that's from the Alan Cox posting I mentioned. I'm afraid didn't have any drives of other brands handy so I gave up on the IDE interface and went all-SCSI. Here's another report of the problem, but also with a Seagate disk: http://docs.freebsd.org/cgi/getmsg.cgi?fetch=577071+0+archive/2002/freebsd-hackers/20020224.freebsd-hackers > > I've just had a very frustrating experience with this problem on an > > Intel STL2-based 4.6-PRERELEASE system which experienced segfaults > > and file system corruption. We tested the memory, checked the PSU, > > heat in the system, replaced the IDE cable, replaced the drive > > (unfortunately with another Seagate!) before I heard about this > > issue. My testing showed that the problem only occurred while > > writing to disk using UltraDMA. > > On the SCB2 Intel has a big warning in the manual to not use that IDE > interface for system disks. I don't see it in the STL2 manual so I guess > they learned their lesson later on. We don't have any SCB2 systems here, but its specs say it has a Promise controller, rather than the ServerWorks chip on our STL2. -- David Siebörger [EMAIL PROTECTED] To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message
Re: What hardware do you use ?
On 13 May 2002, David [ISO-8859-1] Siebörger wrote: > That's hardly the worst of it. The ServerWorks OSB4 ATA controller > has been known to cause data corruption with Seagate drives. Have you isolated it to Seagates only? our problematic rackables have seagate drives, but I don't have any other mfr drives (maxtor, ibm) to test it with. > I've just had a very frustrating experience with this problem on an > Intel STL2-based 4.6-PRERELEASE system which experienced segfaults > and file system corruption. We tested the memory, checked the PSU, > heat in the system, replaced the IDE cable, replaced the drive > (unfortunately with another Seagate!) before I heard about this > issue. My testing showed that the problem only occurred while > writing to disk using UltraDMA. On the SCB2 Intel has a big warning in the manual to not use that IDE interface for system disks. I don't see it in the STL2 manual so I guess they learned their lesson later on. Doug White| FreeBSD: The Power to Serve [EMAIL PROTECTED] | www.FreeBSD.org To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message
Re: What hardware do you use ?
Gregory Sutter wrote: > On 2002-05-11 10:49 +0800, Dinesh Nair <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> On Fri, 10 May 2002, Doug White wrote: >> >> > usually have onboard everything, including dual fxp's nowadays. But they >> > have the ServerWorks curse. >> > . Tyan makes some interesting stuff, but as with all ServerWorks based >> > stuff, stay far, far away from the base ATA33 controller. Even the cheap >> >> what serverworks curse ? i may not have been aware of an issue here. could >> someone please let me know about this ? > > The Serverworks chipsets max out at ATA/33. Not very fast. That's hardly the worst of it. The ServerWorks OSB4 ATA controller has been known to cause data corruption with Seagate drives. I've just had a very frustrating experience with this problem on an Intel STL2-based 4.6-PRERELEASE system which experienced segfaults and file system corruption. We tested the memory, checked the PSU, heat in the system, replaced the IDE cable, replaced the drive (unfortunately with another Seagate!) before I heard about this issue. My testing showed that the problem only occurred while writing to disk using UltraDMA. This post on the Linux kernel list gives further details: http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=linux-kernel&m=100188302723186&w=2 -- David Siebörger [EMAIL PROTECTED] To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message
Re: What hardware do you use ?
On 2002-05-11 10:49 +0800, Dinesh Nair <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On Fri, 10 May 2002, Doug White wrote: > > > usually have onboard everything, including dual fxp's nowadays. But they > > have the ServerWorks curse. > > . Tyan makes some interesting stuff, but as with all ServerWorks based > > stuff, stay far, far away from the base ATA33 controller. Even the cheap > > what serverworks curse ? i may not have been aware of an issue here. could > someone please let me know about this ? The Serverworks chipsets max out at ATA/33. Not very fast. Greg -- Gregory S. Sutter Five million battered women in mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] this country, and I've always http://www.zer0.org/~gsutter/ eaten mine plain... hkp://wwwkeys.pgp.net/0x845DFEDD msg34289/pgp0.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: What hardware do you use ?
On Fri, May 10, 2002 at 11:48:12AM -0700, Doug White wrote: > > 1) At eGroups/Y!Groups we used Intel L440GX+ motherboards. These are now > (sadly) discontinued, but supported slotted P2 and P3 CPUs. Very solid if > you used approved memory. I despise the L440GX+ mobos I have to work with at work (AvantGo). I've run into many SCSI errors with the L440GX+ unless you have BIOS revision 14.x or higher. They're a pain in the a** to upgrade the BIOS, and one of the SCSI buses is dumbed down to SE. The only redeeming feature of the L440GX+ is that they have the BIOS out serial console, but they haven't earn my trust. I used to have a two cabinets full of Tyan 1837's which were rock solid; I never had to go to the colo armed with a boot CD and a BIOS on a floppy just to stabilize a machine. That's my opinion for BX/GX based mobo's. I'm still undecided on the newer AthlonMP and Intel SBC2 boards, but of course I don't form judgemental opinions until I've admin'ed them for at least a year. --clark To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message
Re: What hardware do you use ?
On Fri, 10 May 2002, Doug White wrote: > usually have onboard everything, including dual fxp's nowadays. But they > have the ServerWorks curse. > . Tyan makes some interesting stuff, but as with all ServerWorks based > stuff, stay far, far away from the base ATA33 controller. Even the cheap what serverworks curse ? i may not have been aware of an issue here. could someone please let me know about this ? Regards, /\_/\ "All dogs go to heaven." [EMAIL PROTECTED](0 0)http://www.alphaque.com/ +==oOO--(_)--OOo==+ | for a in past present future; do| | for b in clients employers associates relatives neighbours pets; do | | echo "The opinions here in no way reflect the opinions of my $a $b." | | done; done | +=+ To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message
Re: What hardware do you use ?
Removing crosspost. On Fri, 10 May 2002, Josef Grosch wrote: > This question came up at last night BAFUG meeting. What hardware do people > use and/or recommend? Specifically, if you were going to build a machine, > using commonly available parts and just to run a generic kernel, what > ethernet, video, motherboards, etc, would you use and/or recommend? I was going to go to the meeting too, I have a long list of these. :) I'm mainly lookigin at server-class stuff here. In somewhat chronological order ... 1) At eGroups/Y!Groups we used Intel L440GX+ motherboards. These are now (sadly) discontinued, but supported slotted P2 and P3 CPUs. Very solid if you used approved memory. (we had a famous incident with a hardware vendor using non-spec memory...) Hard disks where the IBM Deskstars before they went to crap. The kernels had mbuf(cluster)s jacked up and ran 3.2-STABLE of some generation. After the merger they converted over to the standard Y! kernel-from-hell. 2) At my current employer we largely split into to machine types: a) The replicatable servers (webs & mid level logic) are on tyan S2510 and S2518 in the rackable systems half-1U box. They use the ServerWorks chipset with the busted ATA controller, so make sure you use SCSI or get the ATA RAID version to avoid it. b) HP Netservers of the last two generations, largely LPr, LP1000r and LP2000r. The HPs are pretty well built, although their onboard management card is half-useless with any decent terminal server. They do support IPMI so you can (largely) avoid having to use that thing. Most machines are dual proc 866 or 900MHz P3 with 1-2 GB RAM. They usually run linnex but we have a few bsd boxes sprinkled about. 3) I demoed a new Intel SCB2 motherboard in their SR1200 chassis a month or so ago. Very, very nice machine. Ran really fast with the onboard fasttrack ATA RAID (also available in SCSI). Also supports the full range of IPMI monitoring features and even has rj45 serial connections. 4) I have a dual AMD 1400 demo coming... eventually. In summary: . The Intel motherboards are quite good. You get what you pay for. They usually have onboard everything, including dual fxp's nowadays. But they have the ServerWorks curse. . Tyan makes some interesting stuff, but as with all ServerWorks based stuff, stay far, far away from the base ATA33 controller. Even the cheap FastTrack ATA RAID they put on is ATA100 and is plenty fast (and supported!) . As soon as I get my hands on the AMD stuff I'll consider a recommendation. :) Doug White| FreeBSD: The Power to Serve [EMAIL PROTECTED] | www.FreeBSD.org To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message
Re: What hardware do you use ?
Josef Grosch writes: >This question came up at last night BAFUG meeting. What hardware do people >use and/or recommend? Specifically, if you were going to build a machine, >using commonly available parts and just to run a generic kernel, what >ethernet, video, motherboards, etc, would you use and/or recommend? The most reliable machine I ever had (and still have) is a VAXstation 3100, running NetBSD. That's rather off-topic wrt your question though but it's my opinion that whatever off-the-shelf PC hardware you buy these days, you'll never reach the robustness of the well designed and engineered minis and workstations from about 10-15 years ago. --mkb To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message
What hardware do you use ?
This question came up at last night BAFUG meeting. What hardware do people use and/or recommend? Specifically, if you were going to build a machine, using commonly available parts and just to run a generic kernel, what ethernet, video, motherboards, etc, would you use and/or recommend? Josef -- Josef Grosch | Another day closer to a | FreeBSD 4.5 [EMAIL PROTECTED] | Micro$oft free world | www.bafug.org To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message
