SMP HOWTO v1.4 Released

SMP HOWTO v1.4 Released

[Enkh Tumenbayar]

Hi,

Linux SMP howto v1.4 has been officially released by me for your kind
comments and suggestions. You can look at it at:

http://ouray.cudenver.edu/~etumenba/smp-howto/

Please feel free to review, comment, suggest anything that can be possibly
added to the document. 

Thanks,

Enkh 
SMP HOWTO maintainer
etumenba@ouray.cudenver.edu

Re: SMP HOWTO v1.4 Released

[Lists (lst)]

On Thu, 11 Jul 2002, Enkh Tumenbayar wrote:

> Hi,

Hi,

> Linux SMP howto v1.4 has been officially released by me for your kind
> comments and suggestions. You can look at it at:
> 
> http://ouray.cudenver.edu/~etumenba/smp-howto/
> 
> Please feel free to review, comment, suggest anything that can be possibly
> added to the document. 

The link for PSET patch is broken? I recive Connection timed out.

Looking up isunix.it.ilstu.edu
isunix.it.ilstu.edu
Making HTTP connection to isunix.it.ilstu.edu
Alert!: Unable to connect to remote host.

lynx: Can't access startfile http://isunix.it.ilstu.edu/~thockin/pset/

Thank you,
Cosmin

Re: SMP HOWTO v1.4 Released

[Maxwell Spangler]

On Thu, 11 Jul 2002, Enkh Tumenbayar wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> Linux SMP howto v1.4 has been officially released by me for your kind
> comments and suggestions. You can look at it at:
> 
> http://ouray.cudenver.edu/~etumenba/smp-howto/
> 
> Please feel free to review, comment, suggest anything that can be possibly
> added to the document. 

This seems a bit out of date?

The information regarding Xeon vs Athlon, for example mentioned "won't know 
until the AMD760MP chipset and PC2100 memory are released..."

Should we be looking for these and getting you additional information to fix 
this?

-- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Maxwell Spangler                                                
Program Writer                                              
Greenbelt, Maryland, U.S.A.                         
Washington D.C. Metropolitan Area 

Re: SMP HOWTO v1.4 Released

[Alan Cox]

> The information regarding Xeon vs Athlon, for example mentioned "won't know 
> until the AMD760MP chipset and PC2100 memory are released..."
> 
> Should we be looking for these and getting you additional information to fix 
> this?

Well here are some contributions


Do AMD 760MP/MPX SMP systems work ?

Yes. For some boards you will need 2.4.18 kernels or later. The IDE
controller needs 2.4.19 for full UDMA support but works more slowly with
older kernels. 

My ASUS dual athlon board locks up

Put the BIOS into MP 1.1 mode. The MP 1.4 tables appear to have
incorrect interrupt routing data

Do I need Athlon/MP or will Athlon/XP processors work

Most people report that dual Athlon/XP works perfectly, but not all. In
general vendors will be suspicious of dual XP bug reports. It's much
like the situation with Dual Celerons

Can I run mixed speeds of Intel processors ?

According to Intel probably not. According to real world experience if
you mix two similar Celeron/PII/PIII processors with the same FSB but
different multipliers Linux will work. You must specify the "notsc" boot
option for this configuration

Can I run mixed PII/PIII setups ?

Yes, providing the PII is the boot processor. One or two applications
get confused when they try to use PIII instructions on SMP and get
rescheduled onto the PII processor, DVD players etc. The programs are
buggy 8)


Common Problems with Dual Athlon boards

o	Yes they really meant it about the 400W PSU. Also check the various
supply line ratings. Some 400W PSU's are not good enough

o	Cooling is critical, not just for the CPU fans but to get PSU and case
heat out of the box. Note that AMD specifically recommend not to use
heatsink compound.


(The 4.2.7 entry (MP1.1 v 1.4 has a typo on stricter)

(4.2.17 needs updating to reflect 2.4)

(4.1.1) also mention 760MPX
 
(4.2) in bad memory

AMD 760MP and 760MPX systems require all the RAM is registered
(buffered) if you are using 3 or more DIMMS. Use good quality DIMM as
they are quite touchy about this. 

Mention memtest86 for testing RAM

2.0.x kernel and fast ethernet

Fixed in more recent 2.0 kernels

(3.1.2) - mention 2,4 kernels. 


(3.1.4) - Most distros now install SMP kernels by default for SMP boxes

(3.1.4) - RTC is only relevant to 2.0

(3.1.4) - APM is automatically disabled in modern kernels for SMP


(3.1.5) 2.2 & 2.4

(3.1.7)

Kernel version 2.4 has much finer grained locking....


X86 Architecture add


Does Linux support the PIV Xeon 'Hyperthreading'

From 2.4.18 onwards the Hyperthreading feature is supported. This makes
each processor appear to be two processors and makes more efficient use
of the processor resources by executing two code streams at once (0-30%
more efficient depending on workload). You will see two 'processors'
reported for each real Xeon you have that has Hyperthreading

Older kernels will see them as a single processor per Xeon and not use
this feature

Re: SMP HOWTO v1.4 Released

[Jakob Oestergaard]

On Sat, Jul 13, 2002 at 03:13:47AM +0100, Alan Cox wrote:
...
> 
> AMD 760MP and 760MPX systems require all the RAM is registered
> (buffered) if you are using 3 or more DIMMS. Use good quality DIMM as
> they are quite touchy about this. 

Correct, according to docs.  But:

My Tyan Tiger here refused to do *anything* with two unregistered
(non-ECC) DIMMS.

Now it has a single registered (ECC) DIMM and it's happy.

It's just one datapoint though...

-- 
................................................................
:   jakob@unthought.net   : And I see the elder races,         :
:.........................: putrid forms of man                :
:   Jakob Østergaard      : See him rise and claim the earth,  :
:        OZ9ABN           : his downfall is at hand.           :
:.........................:............{Konkhra}...............:

AMD 760MPX

[Christian HOFFMANN]

> 
> AMD 760MP and 760MPX systems require all the RAM is registered
> (buffered) if you are using 3 or more DIMMS. Use good quality DIMM as
> they are quite touchy about this. 

About ASUS A7M266-D and ram, this motherboard work with 
registered RAM in ECC or non-ECC configuration (my machine as one 
of each (256Mo) kind and work in non-ECC mode).

It work also with 2 non-registered noname 256Mo DIMMs.

Both machnie runs with Athlon MP (one with 2 MP1900 an one with 2 
MP1800).

Just some first hand information for the list.

-------------------------------------------
Christian HOFFMANN <hoffmann@noos.fr>