|
03 Mar 2007, 18 Mar 2007
Intel Core 2 Duo 1.86GHz, 1066MHz FSB (Front-Side Bus), 2MB L2 (Level 2)
Cache
with Heat Sink
3 Mar 2007
US$196
This server uses the P965 north bridge chipset,
and ICH8 south bridge chipset.
The advantage of P965 over 965 is the ability to run 800MHz DDR2 memory. The
1066MHz Front-side bus (FSB) speed is for SATA ports. Fedora 6 (downloaded at
Feb 2007) and CentOS 5 (downloaded April 2007) didn't support ICH8 south bridge
chipset, so the SATA ports wouldn't work for those. You may set legacy support
in the BIOS to fix the SATA problem.
There is a version called the G965 chipset, which has a GMA in it. As far as
I understood, GMA is a Graphic Processing Unit (GPU) for graphical computing.
Here is a table of the power usage for recent Intel Chipset.
|
North Bridge |
975X |
945P |
P965 |
|
South Bridge |
ICH7
|
ICH7
|
ICH8
|
|
Bus Speed |
1066MHz
|
1066MHz
|
1066MHz
|
|
Memory |
667 x 2
|
667 x 2
|
ICH8
|
|
NB TDP |
13.5W
|
15.2W
|
19W
|
|
SB TDP |
3.3W
|
3.3W
|
4.1W
|
|
Total TDP |
16.8W
|
18.5W
|
23.1W
|
Source:
http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=32230
Patriot 2 x 1GB DDR2 memory 800MHz, Lifetime Warranty
tCLK (CAS Latency) = 2
tRCD (RAS to CAS Delay or Active to CMD) = 3
tRP (RAS Precharge Time or Precharge to Active) = 2
tRAS (Row Active Time or Active to Precharge or Row Active Delay) = 5
3 Mar 2007
US$199.99
Latency 5-5-5-12
http://shop1.outpost.com/product/4954981?site=sr:SEARCH:MAIN_RSLT_PG
DDR2 2GB PC2-6400 800MHz Dual Channel Patriot
PDC22G6400ELK
PATRIOT:
FRYS.com #: 4954981
The Patriot Extreme Performance PC2-6400 Eased Latency line is engineered to
provide PC enthusiasts and gamers enhanced memory performance without breaking
the bank. Capable of operating at 800MHz with a latency of 5-5-5-12, it is
equipped with Patriot's own bladed heat shields to ensure system stability while
running under extreme overclocking conditions. Available in 1GB and 2GB kits,
these memory modules are compatible with the latest AMD and Intel DDR2 platforms
allowing users to speed up their system instantly.
Detailed Description [return to top]
* Extreme Bandwidth PC2-6400 (800MHz)
* Eased Latency (5-5-5-12)
* Bladed aluminum heat shields to improve module stability
* 100% Tested and Verified
* Lifetime Warranty
* RoHS Compliant|
1 and 2.
ABIT AB9 PRO
Intel P965/ICH8R Chipset (P965 northbridge, ICH8R
southbridge)
9 SATA, 3G RAID, 3Gb/s (some SATA2,
some not)
1 E-SATA (External SATA)
1 PCI-Express X16 (forgot how many X1)
2 Gigabit Ethernet ports (Realtek 8111B Gigabit LAN )
7.1 Channel On board Audio (Realtek ALC 882D)
Silent-OTES Technology
Dual Channel DDR2 800, 12.5GB/s
1066MHz Front-Side Bus Support
3 Mar 2007 US$153
or
17 Mar 2007 US$90
(they are both priced new, with a difference of 2 weeks,
I was surprised about these price tags)
21 Mar 2007 US$90
 |
A screenshot of the abit ab9 board price on yahoo on
21 Mar 2007. Even online has a price of around $150. Fry's is selling for $90.
Very aggressive pricing.
3.
Intel DG965SSCK C2D 775
Chipset Intel G965/GMA X300 VGA
DDR2 800MHz,
On board Audio and Video,
Gigabit Ethernet
2 PCI
1 PCI-Express x 16
Micro ATX
4 SATA
# 6 x SATA 3Gb/s offer by Intel® ICH8R support
Intel® Matrix Storage Tech(AHCI & RAID 0/1/5 /10)
# 2 x SATA 3Gb/s offer by JMicron® JMB363 support up to 0,1,0+1,JBOD RAID
function
# 1 x SATA 3Gb/s offer by Silicon Image 3132 to 0,1,0+1,JBOD RAID function
# 1 x SATA 3Gb/s offer by Silicon Image 3132 (This is the e-SATA?)
1.
EVGA e-GeForce7 7100GS 128MB DDR2, 64 bit, PCI-e (express), support dual
monitor, DVI/VGS/S-video
Doesn't work with Fedora Core 6
3 Mar 2007
$59.99
2.
ASUS Extreme AX300E
ATI Radeon X300SE
256 MB Memory
Dual Display (VGA, DVI, S-video)
PCI Express X16
Received on 15 Mar 2007
US$50
3.
Diamond Stealth ATI Radeon X300SE
256 MB Memory
Dual Display (VGA, DVI, S-video)
PCI Express X16
15 Mar 2007
US$99
Both 2 and 3 use ATI Radeon X300SE
from ATI website.
ATI Radeon X300SE (128MB) PCIe Graphics Card
Models
ATI Radeon X300SE (128MB) PCIe Graphics Card DY596A
Introduction
The ATI Radeon X300SE (128MB) PCIe Graphics Card is a 128 MB graphics
accelerator providing a low profile, PCI Express x16-lane graphics add-in card.
The ATI Radeon X300SE (128MB) PCIe graphics accelerator is an ideal solution for
those desktop PC customers seeking stable 2D and advanced 3D graphics
performance. It is an excellent choice for small business or large enterprise
users engaging in video conferencing or 3D image manipulation, while improving
the everyday business PC experience with faster frame rates and excellent visual
quality.
PCI Express is the next generation I/O bus technology, providing significant
enhancements over the existing AGP and PCI standards. The ATI Radeon X300SE
(128MB) PCIe Graphics Card deliver superior PCI Express (PCI-E) features
including:
* Unprecedented flexibility for new applications and enhanced performance.
* Full 16-lane support with peak bandwidth support which is double the peak
performance of AGP 8x.
Key Benefits
* 128MB dedicated on-board graphics frame buffer memory removing the need to
share PC system memory.
* Conforms to full PCI Express 1.0A specification for low-profile form factor
(x16 lanes native PCI Express implementation).
* Provides either VGA (64 MB) or DVI-I (128 MB), and S-video output ports.
* Full DirectX 9.0 support in hardware for optimal performance in DX9
applications.
Memory Peak memory bandwidth
128 MB DDR1 1.6 GB/s
Compatibility
The ATI Radeon X300SE (128MB) PCIe Graphics Card is compatible with the HP
Compaq Business Desktop dx2200 Microtower, dx5150, dx6100 and dx6120 series
desktops and dc7100 and dc7600 small form factor and convertible minitowers
desktops.
Driver Download Location
http://www.realtek.com.tw/downloads/downloadsView.aspx?Langid=1&PNid=13&PFid=5&Level=5&Conn=4&DownTypeID=3&GetDown=false
Introducing Realtek RTL8111B Ethernet
Controller
http://www.realtek.com.tw/products/productsView.aspx?Langid=1&PFid=5&Level=5&Conn=4&ProdID=11
1. Thermaltake - cool all your life
Purepower 500W
ATX 12V 2.0
AMD Athlon 65/ Athlon 64FX
Intel Pentium4 Prescott
Universal 24(20) Pin
PCI Express x 1
SATA x 4
12 cm fan, dual +12 Rails
8 4-pin Peripheral Power Connectors
2 4-pin Floppy Drive Connectors
1 4-pin +12V Power Connector
4 5-pin SATA Connectors
1 6-pin PCI^Express Connector
1 24-pin Main Connector
3 Mar 2007
US$66.49
2.
Antec EarthWatt 380W
ATX 12V v2.0 PSU (Power Supply Unit)
80 PLUS Certified
80mm Low Noise Fan
17 Mar 2007
US$59.99
1. 250 GB Old Seagate PATA hard disk (US$???), this was burned by
the power supply (the thermal take PSU) on 15 Mar 2007
2. 60 GB PATA Maxtor hard disk from garage sale (US$0.50),
this was burned by the power supply (the thermal take PSU) on 15 Mar 2007
3. 300 GB Maxtor SATA hard
disk from Fry's (US$89.99). 7200 RPM, 16MB buffer, 1 year warranty, this was
also burned by a new power supply from Fry's and was refunded,
17 Mar 2007
4. 300 GB Maxtor SATA hard
disk from Fry's (US$89.99). 7200 RPM, 16MB buffer, 1 year warranty, this was
also burned by a new power supply (the antec PSU) from Fry and was refunded,
17 Mar 2007
5. 300 GB Maxtor SATA hard
disk from Fry's (US$89.99). 7200 RPM, 16MB buffer, 1 year warranty, this was not
working with Fedora Core 6 and was refunded, 18
Mar 2007
1.
To Fry's (The one in Arques)
EVGS e-GeForce 7100GS Video Card
US$-68.18
3 Mar 2007
2.
To Fry's (The one in Arques)
AB9 PRO motherboard + 300 GB Maxtor SATA2 Hard Drive
US$-165.62
17 Mar 2007
3.
To Fry's (the one in Campell)
antec power supply (and a Maxtor hard disk is replaced)
US$-64.94
17 Mar 2007
4.
To Fry's (the one in Arques)
AB9 PRO motherboard + 300 GB Maxtor SATA2 Hard Drive
US$-162.35
17 Mar 2007
5.
To Fry's (the one in Arques)
Intel DG9675SSCK motherboard + 300GB Maxtor SATA2 Hard Drive
US$-227.31
18 Mar 2007
Finally identified the server
problem was from the intel ICH8R south bridge chipset.
Obviously Fedora Core 6 (FC6) with the linux kernel
2.6.18 is not supporting the intel ICH8R south bridge chipset. Therefore, FC6
was unable to be installed onto the SATA hard drive.
The fix was very easy: just ignore the 6 intel
SATA ports on the lower right corner and use those (JMicron?) SATA ports between
the PCI/PCI-e ports. (There are 9 internal SATA ports
and 1 external SATA port (e-SATA) on the Abit AB9 Pro
motherboard).
After the hard drive recognition problem was solved, Fedora Core 6 (FC6)
installation proceeded. However, the installation encountered another
error in the middle of the installation. Fedora Core 6 claimed that the
installation disk itself has an error. However, doing a disk integrity on the
FC6 installation disk doesn't show
any error. And I believe this is a hardware problem, because I was able to
install FC6 with another motherboard and CPU before.
Some online article suggested that the 2.6.18 kernel that
comes with FC6 doesn't support the Realtek (dual) Gigabit Ethernet chip as well.
That means even after I get FC6 working with my motherboard and hard drive, I
wouldn't be able to update all the software packages that comes with FC6. I
remember FC6 needs to update hundreds of patches right after a fresh
installation.
Finally, I gave up and decide to try ubuntu 6.10.
Surprisingly, ubuntu recognizes the SATA drive, video card, sound chip, realtek
ethernet port, basically everything at the first run. The installation was very
quick and very easy. And the default installation can display Japanese and
Chinese perfectly, unlike the default installation of Fedora Core 6.
I think ubuntu would be a very lovely OS. But my goal is
to build a server, so eventually, I would still want to use FC to be the server
OS. Redhat (fedora) is around for a long time, there are many documentations,
and all the server applications (DNS and mail server stuff) comes with the
package.
Anyway, I will play with
ubuntu until the next version of Fedora Core comes out. I don't want to spend
time compiling kernels and hunting for drivers so FC6 would work.
At the first glance, ubuntu
has many cool applications that come with the package. For example: VLC player
and bittorrent client (the official client and Azureus). Also, ubuntu is built
from Debian. I have heard Debian is a stable server build as well. After enough
testing with ubuntu, I might just stay with ubuntu for the server OS.
This would be the end of the
quest to setup a server at home. After this, it would be things I can play with
on this server setup. =) Thanks everyone who gave me advices.
Having Fun,
Bill Hung
18 Mar 2007
hi,
After burning the 4th hard drive, I have finally identified the problem: The
material that is holding the hard disk is conducting current. Basically I had a
short right under the hard drive.
Great, return, return, return, refund, refund, refund. I got more than US$500
back from Fry's for all my returns (over 4 times). Very soon Fry's is going to
bad-list me for killing their hard drives and not paying for them.
Anyway, so I decided to bring all my power supply, motherboard, ram, cpu, and
video card to fry's. I bought another brand new motherboard (intel) and another
hard disk. And I decided to test the system at Fry's service department.
While I was at Fry's setting up the new system, I encountered another problem.
The Fedora Core 6 (downloaded on 27 Feb 2007) didn't recognize the SATA chipset
(should be intel P965), and the installation of Fedora Core 6 was unsuccessful.
So I talked to the technicians over there at Fry's. They were nice enough to
lend me a copy of ubuntu, but ubuntu was unable to load either (stuck on the
"uncompressing linux" page). And I also tried to boot with my Knoppix, and
Knoppix only gives me a very limited command prompt (no GUI).
At the end of the day, the solution was to return the intel motherboard and the
SATA hard disk to Fry's. Then go home and do some research on what chipset
driver Fedora Core 6 supports. It seems like the problem now is, the motherboard
sees the hard drive, but Fedora Core 6 doesn't know how to deal with the SATA2
hard drive. In the worst case, I would have to use PATA hard disk for this
server system...
I have updated the server info here
http://billhung.net/hardware/bill_hung_s_linux_server_setup_at_home.htm
Never ever thought building a server is this difficult. I will continue this
quest next weekend.
Bill Hung
17 Mar 2007
In an attemp to build a video file server at home, I have already spent close to
US$1000 on hardwares (http://www.billhung.net/hardware/bill_hung_s_linux_server_setup_at_home.htm
)
For whatever reasons, everything worked one time (I was able to start windows),
and then my hard disk started to smoke after couple hours. The aluminum foil
under the hard disk was burn and the hard disk had a hole underneath it. Great,
now I killed one hard disk.
In order to continue testing the new server setup, I powered off the power
supply, and then connected another PATA IDE hard disk to the system. Powering on
the system again caused the second hard disk to die... Now 2 hard disks no
longer responds to the power supply.
At this point, I suspected the PSU (power supply unit) was defective, so I went
to Fry's to buy a new power supply and a new SATA hard disk yesterday night. I
tested the new SATA hard disk and new PSU with the server. And then I saw smoke
coming out again....
I would go to Fry's to return the burned hard disk. I now suspect the power
supply from the power outlet is unstable. I need to find the root cause of the
problem.
Never thought building a server system is so difficult.
Ah, I decided to use Fedora Core (Red Hat) for the server OS, and I might use
ubuntu as well (as the 2nd server?).
Bill Hung
Posted on Friday 10 November
2006
http://www.blindedbytech.com/2006/11/10/how-to-install-fedora-core-6-on-intel-dg965ss-motherboard/
I decided to take the plunge and start playing around with dual core technology,
so I went down to the local store and picked up a new CPU, RAM, and motherboard.
However, what I discovered was that it can actually be quite difficult actually
installing Linux to what I had purchased, due to the newness of the technology.
While support for dual core CPUs has been around for a while, support for some
of the more recent motherboards has not, and mine was one of them. So, I could
wait for broader support in a few months, or see what I could do now.
First, the reference information — the hardware I used.
* Intel Core 2 Duo Processor E6600
* Intel Classic Series Desktop Board DG965SS
* Kingston KVR533D2N4K2/1G (2x 512 MB)
* Western Digital 74 GB SATA Raptor WD740ADFD
* Antec TruePower 2.0 TPII-430
* JVC XJ-HD166S ATAPI DVD-ROM
Live isn’t so live, after all.
My plan was to battle-test this system with a few different Linux distributions,
and then transition to testing Windows, but alas — my plans were not to be. I
couldn’t even successfully boot up the live CDs I had! I’ve reproduced the error
messages below, for the people searching for an answer.
If I tried to boot up Knoppix 5.0 DVD (2006-06-01-EN), I would get this error:
Can't find KNOPPIX filesystem, sorry.
Dropping you to a (very limited) shell.
Press the reset button to quit.
If I tried to boot the Ubuntu 6.10 “Edgy Eft” live CD, I would get this error:
BusyBox v1.1.3 (Debian 1.1.1.3-2ubuntu3) Built-in shell (ash)
Enter 'help' for a list of built-in commands.
/bin/sh: can't access tty; job control turned off
If I tried to boot the CentOS 4.4 live CD, I wouldn’t even get an error message
— it would just reboot when I tried to select an option.
The interesting thing about the above is that the file system for live CDs
largely lives on the CD itself. Hence, if it couldn’t read it as in the above,
then for some reason, the DVD drive wasn’t accessible. After doing a little
research online, I discovered that the motherboard was relatively new, and did
some rather funky things with the handling of the IDE devices. Hence, the
computer would start to boot off the optical drive, but when it came time to
load up a kernel and actually boot the system, the computer no longer knew how
to access the drive! This all resulted from a lack of Linux support for the new
motherboard architecture from Intel. Haven’t Linux developers built that time
machine yet to get future architectures into old kernels? (Note that Windows
would have similar problems; if I didn’t have an up to date Windows install CD
or the driver disk, I would be out of luck.)
New hardware? Please stand by, support will be added momentarily…
Linux developers have a reasonably quick turnaround time on these things, and
have, in fact, added support to the kernel. Unfortunately, they added it to the
most recent kernel — 2.6.18. In CentOS 4.4 (as well as Red Hat Enterprise 4.4),
this is 2.6.9-39. In Knoppix 5.0 is 2.6.17. In Ubuntu Edgy Eft, it’s 2.6.17. I
would need to wait for the next release before getting support for the 965
chipset. Fortunately for me, Fedora Core 6 was released with the 2.6.18 kernel,
meaning that I could use that instead. Being that I didn’t really feel like
re-authoring my own custom live CD, I went with that, and will just have to wait
for future releases on the others.
The devil is in the details.
I downloaded Fedora Core 6 for x86_64. I’m fairly certain that the i386 version
would install in much the same manner, but decided that I might as well use the
64-bit version. I put in the DVD and booted up the computer.
However, it brought up a text-mode window to select language, keyboard, and
installation method: something had gone wrong, because in a normal install, the
full graphical environment would have been displayed. Upon selecting an
installation method of “Local CDROM”, the installer reported the error “No
driver found” — looks like I had some work to do.
First, I rebooted and struck F2 to get into the BIOS. Under the “Advanced” tab,
“Drive Configuration”, I set “Configure SATA as” to “AHCI”. I then exited,
saving changes.
Next, I rebooted with the the install DVD in the drive. When the message came up
“To install or upgrade in graphical mode, press the <enter> key.”, I didn’t just
hit enter — instead, I typed the following line:
linux all-generic-ide pci=nommconf
This is the magic trick. After skipping the media check, the full graphical
environment came up at that point, and I could install as per normal. I did so,
and the computer rebooted after installation.
So close, I can taste it!
The computer boots up, and the Internet connection was recognized straight away.
The resolution was set to 800×600, so I went to System->Administration->Display,
and clicked on the Hardware tab. I changed the monitor to “Generic CRT
Display/Monitor 1280×1024″, and then I could set the resolution to (naturally)
1280×1024. System updates worked fine, and programs launched correctly. I could
surf the web without issue (except for flash support, which is a whole other
problem I won’t address here).
However, there was something wrong…the optical drive no longer worked! I could
put in a CD or DVD, and they wouldn’t be recognized by the operating system,
despite having worked fine for the install process. The problem here is in GRUB,
the Linux bootloader. While the install had correctly added pci=nommconf to the
loader, it had neglected to include the all-generic-ide tag.
I edited /etc/grub.conf as root, and changed the line…
kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.18-1.2798.fc6 ro root=/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00 pci=nommconf
rhgb quiet
…to…
kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.18-1.2798.fc6 ro root=/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00 all-generic-ide
pci=nommconf rhgb quiet
I needed to re-install GRUB, with grub-install /dev/sda1. A reboot later, and
things worked fine.
Success!
So yes, Virginia, it is possible to install Linux on this wonky motherboard.
What’s more, since the support is in the kernel (and far better people than
myself are slavishly hacking away at it), it’s quite likely that distributions
will support this out of the box in the future without special handling. I
haven’t had any issues with this set up yet, and it runs in 64-bit mode to boot.
Some closing thoughts…
* The problems I experienced were largely a result of the IDE channel handling
of the chipset. If I had an SATA optical drive, I could probably have gotten up
and running on Fedora Core 6 without any extra futzing. This also may have
gotten Ubuntu to install as well.
* This also means that if you have, say, ATA drives (not SATA), you may
experience a whole host of other problems.
* Ubuntu “Edgy Eft” should have some backports built into it to handle the Intel
965 chipset, however, I couldn’t get them to work. It’s feasible that this CD
could boot on an ATAPI optical drive, if given the right options.
* While these problems will probably go away in new releases, it’s not
guaranteed. The chipset will at least be better supported.
* I’m not looking forward to the Windows installation. The chipset claims that I
should be fine with Windows XP SP2 or Windows Media Center Edition. Only time
will tell.
http://www.webservertalk.com/message1762855.html
General Schvantzkoph
View Ip Address Report This Message To A Moderator Edit/Delete Message
12-19-06 12:17 AM
I'm having an odd problem with my new Core2 system. The system has an Abit
AB9 Pro motherboard (P965 northbridge, ICH8R southbridge), two Seagate
320G SATA drives, 4G of DDR2.
Each drive has three partitions, two 8G partitions to hold OSes and SWAP,
and 1 large 278G partition that is one half of a software RAID0 partition.
When I do a Verilog regression, which involves lots of writes, on one of
the small partitions the I/O system hangs. I'm still able to ssh into the
machine and I can do some operations that don't involve disk accesses, for
example ls will work on the part of the file system that's in memory but
will stop when it hits a part of the file system that isn't cached. The
hang happens very quickly. When I do the regression on the RAID0 partition
this doesn't seem to happen. Also I've tried this with partitions on both
disks, they both fail identically, so this isn't the result of a broken
disk or a bad cable.
I've run Memtest86+ and the Seagate disk diagnostics and neither found a
problem, although it should be noted that neither of those tools
understands the 965 chipset. I've also switched the BIOS mode for the Intel
SATA controllers from AHCI back to IDE, that didn't make any difference.
I'm using 64 bit Fedora Core 6 with a 2.6.19.1 kernel. The BIOS is the
latest one that ABit has.
This could be a bad motherboard but I suspect that if it were I would have
seen a problem with either Memtest86+, the Seagate diagnostics, the
install and updates, or when I untared my tools which are multiple
gigabytes in size. However none of those had a problem. My suspicion
is that mixing both RAID and non-RAID partitions in the same partition
table is the source of the problem, but I don't why this should be.
Does anyone have any theories? Is anyone seeing anything similar?
[ Post a follow-up to this message ]
Re: Disk I/O problem on Abit AB9 Pro, Core2 system
sndive@gmail.com
View Ip Address Report This Message To A Moderator Edit/Delete Message
12-20-06 12:18 AM
General Schvantzkoph wrote:
> I'm having an odd problem with my new Core2 system. The system has an Abit
> AB9 Pro motherboard (P965 northbridge, ICH8R southbridge), two Seagate
> 320G SATA drives, 4G of DDR2.
>
> Each drive has three partitions, two 8G partitions to hold OSes and SWAP,
> and 1 large 278G partition that is one half of a software RAID0 partition.
> When I do a Verilog regression, which involves lots of writes, on one of
> the small partitions the I/O system hangs. I'm still able to ssh into the
> machine and I can do some operations that don't involve disk accesses, for
> example ls will work on the part of the file system that's in memory but
> will stop when it hits a part of the file system that isn't cached. The
> hang happens very quickly. When I do the regression on the RAID0 partition
> this doesn't seem to happen. Also I've tried this with partitions on both
> disks, they both fail identically, so this isn't the result of a broken
> disk or a bad cable.
>
> I've run Memtest86+ and the Seagate disk diagnostics and neither found a
> problem, although it should be noted that neither of those tools
> understands the 965 chipset. I've also switched the BIOS mode for the Inte
l
> SATA controllers from AHCI back to IDE, that didn't make any difference.
>
> I'm using 64 bit Fedora Core 6 with a 2.6.19.1 kernel. The BIOS is the
> latest one that ABit has.
>
> This could be a bad motherboard but I suspect that if it were I would have
> seen a problem with either Memtest86+, the Seagate diagnostics, the
> install and updates, or when I untared my tools which are multiple
> gigabytes in size. However none of those had a problem. My suspicion
> is that mixing both RAID and non-RAID partitions in the same partition
> table is the source of the problem, but I don't why this should be.
>
> Does anyone have any theories? Is anyone seeing anything similar?
Of the top of my head that sounds like a problem with the ICH8 driver
in the kernel
(or the driver exposes an ICH8 hardware bug).
If you end up getting a real hw raid controller (as a "temporary"
solution) please let us know.
I'd hate to buy more pata drives if I need more space.
Did you post to the kernel mailing list?
I'm seeing some problems with reiserfs in 2.6.18
(and reiserfsck "fixed" the "problem": all the files are in /lost+found
now)
Are you running ext3 or something else? Raw parititions?
I could augment the memtest86 replacement I posted here a while ago
to include hdparm like benchmarking functionality, but destructive
(testing read and write perf).
I suspect kernel developers already have something like that for
testing though.
[ Post a follow-up to this message ]
Re: Disk I/O problem on Abit AB9 Pro, Core2 system
sndive@gmail.com
View Ip Address Report This Message To A Moderator Edit/Delete Message
12-20-06 12:18 AM
General Schvantzkoph wrote:
> I'm having an odd problem with my new Core2 system. The system has an Abit
> AB9 Pro motherboard (P965 northbridge, ICH8R southbridge), two Seagate
> 320G SATA drives, 4G of DDR2.
>
> Each drive has three partitions, two 8G partitions to hold OSes and SWAP,
> and 1 large 278G partition that is one half of a software RAID0 partition.
> When I do a Verilog regression, which involves lots of writes, on one of
> the small partitions the I/O system hangs. I'm still able to ssh into the
> machine and I can do some operations that don't involve disk accesses, for
> example ls will work on the part of the file system that's in memory but
> will stop when it hits a part of the file system that isn't cached. The
> hang happens very quickly. When I do the regression on the RAID0 partition
> this doesn't seem to happen. Also I've tried this with partitions on both
> disks, they both fail identically, so this isn't the result of a broken
> disk or a bad cable.
It occurred to me that it could also be a problem with the sata
circuitry on that disk model.
Could you try a different brand of a hard drives?
[ Post a follow-up to this message ]
Re: Disk I/O problem on Abit AB9 Pro, Core2 system
General Schvantzkoph
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12-20-06 12:18 AM
On Tue, 19 Dec 2006 15:05:31 -0800, sndive wrote:
> General Schvantzkoph wrote:
>
> Of the top of my head that sounds like a problem with the ICH8 driver
> in the kernel
> (or the driver exposes an ICH8 hardware bug).
> If you end up getting a real hw raid controller (as a "temporary"
> solution) please let us know.
> I'd hate to buy more pata drives if I need more space.
> Did you post to the kernel mailing list?
>
> I'm seeing some problems with reiserfs in 2.6.18
> (and reiserfsck "fixed" the "problem": all the files are in /lost+found
> now)
> Are you running ext3 or something else? Raw parititions?
>
> I could augment the memtest86 replacement I posted here a while ago
> to include hdparm like benchmarking functionality, but destructive
> (testing read and write perf).
> I suspect kernel developers already have something like that for
> testing though.
I doubt it's the drives or the ICH8R controller. I've been running Verilog
regressions for the last 24 hours on the soft RAID0 partition and I
haven't had a problem there, in fact last night I had two regression
streams running so both cores were running flat out for about 8 hours.
When I use one of the small non-RAID partitions I get the hang up in under
a minute so it looks like a real bug in the SATA driver.
I'm using EXT3 and Seagate 320G drives. I'm thinking about getting a third
identical drive to use as the non-RAID drive, if I can run on that drive
where there will be no RAID partitions, then that should confirm that the
problem is mixing RAID and non-RAID on the same drive.
BTW if you have a Memtest86 replacement it would be nice if you made it
available, put it on Sourceforge or something. It looks like Memtest86+ has
been abandoned, there haven't been any updates since 2005.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductReview.aspx?Item=N82E16813127004&SortField=0&SummaryType=ALL&Pagesize=10&Page=2
challenge for Fedora, Ultimately Worthwhile
Pros: Lightning FAST, Stable, Overclockable, Comes with nice toys
Cons: Cutting edge ICH8R chipset betrayed by older Linux distros, weird mobo
layout
Other Thoughts: Getting this mobo to run Fedora 6 was a hair-pulling experience.
The key: Set the ICH8R SATA controller into "ACHI Mode". Plus, the stock FC6
install would not enable the onboard LAN interfaces (I had to throw in a 10/100
card until I could run pup to get the kernel to 2.6.19-1.2911). But once this
was done, I was TOTALLY enthralled with the performance of the board, and the
VALUE of this board. You can have your ASUS - this board ROCKS!
http://halisway.blogspot.com/2006/10/running-ubuntu-610-on-abit-ab9.html
Are you using a Abit AB9 motherboard?
If so, make sure you are indeed using the JMicron controller (between the PCI
slots, not the six ports to the lower right of the motherboard or the single
port).
If you still are getting errors please make sure you disable "Legacy OS USB
support" in the BIOS and try running the installer with the irqpoll option.
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