*BSD News Article 56253


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From: julian@mailhub.tfs.com (Julian Elischer)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
Subject: Re: help for new boot of 2.0.5
Date: 1 Dec 1995 05:32:46 GMT
Organization: TRW Financial Systems, Oakland, CA
Lines: 34
Message-ID: <49m41u$hft@times.tfs.com>
References: <48ducm$ote@thrush.sover.net> <48en2k$b97@atlas.uniserve.com> <49lnv9$f2f@central.co.nz>
NNTP-Posting-Host: mailhub.tfs.com

In article <49lnv9$f2f@central.co.nz>, Jane  <jane@paradigm.co.nz> wrote:
:tom@uniserve.com (Tom Samplonius) wrote:
:>In article <48ducm$ote@thrush.sover.net>, woody@sover.netl says...
:>>
:>
:>
:>  Try disabling your system cache via CMOS setup.
:>
:>Tom
:>
:
:I have had a similar problem.  BSD would get up to testing the memory, 
:and then reboot, unless the external cache was turned off.
:I have a 486 which has had some problems in the past - it occasionally 
:reboots or hangs, seemingly at random.  When disabling the cache allowed 
:freeBSD to boot, I thought that I had found the problem with the machine. 
: Obviously, however, the cache does not have to be bad to prevent BSD 
:from booting.  Could someone please detail this BSD problem to me, and is 
:there a better solution than turning off the cache?
:Thanks.
:
the problem seems to do with 
switching back and forth between 16 and 32 bit modes
(which we do during boot to use the BIOS),
decompressing the install kernel and FS, and the cache.

once you have installed the system you can re-enable the cache
and the system seems to run fine..

No-one has the logic analysers needed to figure this out,
but luckily it doesn't seem to be a show-stopper.
Machines that have this problem don't seem to be any less 
reliable once ther system is running and the cache has been re-enabled.