random panic and freezes on mpc8349 itx

random panic and freezes on mpc8349 itx

[Nicolas Schichan]

Hi,

I am currently working with an MPC8349ITX board and I have some trouble with 
the kernel as soon as it reaches userland.

If I boot the kernel with all the memory (256MB) available (no mem=... on the 
command line), I get random freezes or random kernel panics. Some times it 
won't even run init. Some times it will panic badly if I try to put some 
pressure to the system (stress --cpu 256). Some times it will hang 
immediately after logging in, ...

If I boot the kernel with mem=64M, these freeze and random panic disapear and 
I am able to run the stress program without any problems.

I have had this strange behaviour on both kernel 2.6.20 and 2.6.22 with 
mpc834x_itx_defconfig (both from kernel.org) (ARCH=powerpc).

I am inclined to say that it is not a broken RAM chip problem because if I use 
a 2.6.17 from kernel.org with all the RAM available (ARCH=ppc) configured 
with mpc834x_sys_defconfig (there was no defconfig for the itx board on this 
version) everything runs fine and I am able to run the stress program without 
any problems.

The panic does not happen very often, 90% of the time, the board hangs and 
stops responding to ping. When a panic do happen it is almost always in a 
different place.

Does any of you have met this problem before ? If you have any clues about 
what is hapenning I'd be glad to hear about it :)

Thank you for your attention,

Regards,

-- 
Nicolas Schichan

Re: random panic and freezes on mpc8349 itx

[Clemens Koller]

Hi, Nicolas!

Nicolas Schichan schrieb:
> Hi,
> 
> I am currently working with an MPC8349ITX board and I have some trouble with 
> the kernel as soon as it reaches userland.
> 
> If I boot the kernel with all the memory (256MB) available (no mem=... on the 
> command line), I get random freezes or random kernel panics. Some times it 
> won't even run init. Some times it will panic badly if I try to put some 
> pressure to the system (stress --cpu 256). Some times it will hang 
> immediately after logging in, ...

Just some ideas how I prefer to roughly track down random crashes:

Check if the problems dependend of supply voltages, grounding or temperature.
Mounting a prototype to an aluminum board improved uptime a lot in one case.
If you don't see any variations at all, I would guess it's a problem caused
by software.

> If I boot the kernel with mem=64M, these freeze and random panic disapear and 
> I am able to run the stress program without any problems.
> 
> I have had this strange behaviour on both kernel 2.6.20 and 2.6.22 with 
> mpc834x_itx_defconfig (both from kernel.org) (ARCH=powerpc).
> 
> I am inclined to say that it is not a broken RAM chip problem because if I use 
> a 2.6.17 from kernel.org with all the RAM available (ARCH=ppc) configured 
> with mpc834x_sys_defconfig (there was no defconfig for the itx board on this 
> version) everything runs fine and I am able to run the stress program without 
> any problems.

Hmm... check the cpu/memory timing manually (by dumping some registers) and compare.
The two ARCHitectures might do things quite different in the meanwhile.
Otherwise, if you can stay within one ARCH, git bisect might be your friend here.

Regards,
-- 
Clemens Koller
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RE: random panic and freezes on mpc8349 itx

[Benedict, Michael]

What version of U-boot are you using?  Could it be RAM initialization?
There was a RAM initialization bug in the ITX for u-boot git sources
until April 2007.
	Good luck,
		Michael

linuxppc-embedded-bounces+mbenedict=3Dtwacs.com@ozlabs.org wrote:
> Hi,
>=20
> I am currently working with an MPC8349ITX board and I have
> some trouble with
> the kernel as soon as it reaches userland.
>=20
> If I boot the kernel with all the memory (256MB) available (no
> mem=3D... on the command line), I get random freezes or random kernel
> panics.=20
> Some times it
> won't even run init. Some times it will panic badly if I try
> to put some
> pressure to the system (stress --cpu 256). Some times it will hang
> immediately after logging in, ...
>=20
> If I boot the kernel with mem=3D64M, these freeze and random
> panic disapear and
> I am able to run the stress program without any problems.
>=20
> I have had this strange behaviour on both kernel 2.6.20 and
> 2.6.22 with
> mpc834x_itx_defconfig (both from kernel.org) (ARCH=3Dpowerpc).
>=20
> I am inclined to say that it is not a broken RAM chip problem because
> if I use a 2.6.17 from kernel.org with all the RAM available
> (ARCH=3Dppc) configured with mpc834x_sys_defconfig (there was no
> defconfig for the=20
> itx board on this
> version) everything runs fine and I am able to run the stress program
> without any problems.
>=20
> The panic does not happen very often, 90% of the time, the
> board hangs and
> stops responding to ping. When a panic do happen it is almost always
> in a different place.
>=20
> Does any of you have met this problem before ? If you have
> any clues about
> what is hapenning I'd be glad to hear about it :)
>=20
> Thank you for your attention,
>=20
> Regards,

Re: random panic and freezes on mpc8349 itx

[Nicolas Schichan]

On Friday 07 September 2007 23:16:35 Benedict, Michael wrote:
> What version of U-boot are you using?

Until recently I was using the u-boot-1.2.0 available on the 
ftp://ftp.denx.de/pub/u-boot/ apparently there since january 2007.

I now use the git tree of today, and everything seems to work fine. I dit not 
notice any freeze or random panic. "stress --cpu 256" is running on the board 
and after 10 minutes it is still alive.

Thank you for the hint :)

Regards,

-- 
Nicolas Schichan