*BSD News Article 75531


Return to BSD News archive

Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.carno.net.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!news.rmit.EDU.AU!news.unimelb.EDU.AU!inferno.mpx.com.au!news.mel.aone.net.au!news.mel.connect.com.au!news.mira.net.au!news.vbc.net!samba.rahul.net!rahul.net!a2i!news.PBI.net!news.mathworks.com!hunter.premier.net!news1.erols.com!news
From: Ken Bigelow <kbigelow@www.play-hookey.com>
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
Subject: Re: PANIC!
Date: Tue, 06 Aug 1996 06:35:21 -0700
Organization: A poorly-installed InterNetNews site
Lines: 38
Message-ID: <32074A19.5C2@www.play-hookey.com>
References: <4u28k8$uig@merin.carrier.kiev.ua>
NNTP-Posting-Host: kenjb05.play-hookey.com
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
X-Mailer: Mozilla 2.02 (Win16; I)

Alexander Litvin wrote:
>    [snipped]
>
> Each system crashes with message like:
> 
> kernel page directory invalid pdir=0x52e063 va=0xc000
>                                    ^^^^^^^^
>                                    actual numbers may differ
> panic: invalid page directory
> 
> Crash is more or less severe from time to time. Sometimes system will
> work well with 200 processes, but crash with 300 - it depends.
> 
> I don't see any reason for such system behaviour. I'm not sure it's
> melfunction, but will be grateful to hear any comments. For we would
> like to use FreeBSD as a server for http, ftp, nntp, and other
> services, and we're very concerned with it's stability. I of course
> know that ftp.freebsd.org sustains very heavy load, but...
> At least, system should refuse to give servicies when overloaded, but
> (from my point of view) it shouldn't crash!
> 
> P.S. May be the program is simply buggy - forgive the dummy in that case.
> 

Whenever I have experienced random crashes of any flavor, it has had to 
do with slightly slow cache RAM. FreeBSD seems to access cache faster 
than DOS/Windoze, and so demands tighter specs.

To check this out, disable external cache in your ROM BIOS setup menus, 
and then try it again. It'll be a little slower, but will either confirm 
or eliminate this possibility.
-- 

Ken

Are you interested in   |
byte-sized education    |   http://www.play-hookey.com
over the Internet?      |