Thanks for the rapid replies,


> Eeek, these machines are now in the wild?  Didn't realize this :)

Yes.  They are still ramping up production, and evals are scarce.
I am pretty excited about it, because on paper, even without
the hyperthreading, they should run pretty fast for I/O intensive
workloads.  My current eval project is to get some empirical
performance numbers on a particular application.

> I don't know if anyone ever tried a 2.2.x kernel on these boxes :)

I'm first!  Lucky me!   :-)


> Is there a reason you _really_ need a 2.2.x kernel for this machine?

Longterm no, shortterm yes,
We have some modifications to the 2.2.x kernel/drivers that would cost
us some time to migrate to 2.4.x.  We expect to do this, but not within
the short eval period during which I have the box.  My immediate goal
is to get it running enough to take performance measurements so we
can clearly quantify the cost/benefit of migrating to this box.


> You also might try a UP 2.2.x kernel on this box to see if the problem
> is in the parsing of the APIC tables (as I think it is.)

As a matter of fact, we did try a UP 2.2.x kernel, and it worked.  But then

we only have one CPU, and where is the fun in that ?  :-)
So I suppose this gives further support to the mishandled APIC table
theory.

I am interested and motivated to understand the details of APIC's further.
If I were to attempt to patch up a 2.2.x kernel to workaround this problem,

what documentation should I have on hand ?  I have an Intel SMP 1.4
doc, although I haven't studied it in detail yet.  Is this sufficient or
are
there other Must Have documents that I will need ?

    - GL