Re: current kernels hang on i386 and amd64

[Paul Goyette <paul%whooppee.com@localhost>]

On Sat, 24 May 2008, Paul Goyette wrote:

> If I NFS-export those file systems and run the exact same build.sh on my 
> dual-core Athlon 64 X2 the build takes twice as long as normal but runs to 
> completion without errors.
>
> So seems to definitely be related to load.  Either that or I'm getting bitten 
> by the "more than 4GB RAM bounce buffer" problem, but the symptoms of that 
> are usually less severe - just random failures of gcc or other build tool.
>
> Is there an easy way to disable the extra RAM (other than opening up the box 
> and removing DIMMs)?

Interesting.  I added "options PHYSMEM_MAX_ADDR=4096" to the 8GB quad-
core box and it now survives a 'build.sh -j8 release' (although it is 
about 20% to 25% slower that it used to be with the full 8GB enabled.

Just curious - even though I set the option above to 4GB, it seems to be 
using only 3GB:

        NetBSD 4.99.63 (SPEEDY (ASUS M2N-E) 2008-05-24 13:13:08) #1: Sat May 24 
12:30:27 PDT 2008
                
paul%speedy.whooppee.com@localhost:/build/obj/amd64/sys/arch/amd64/compile/SPEEDY
        total memory = 3070 MB
        avail memory = 2957 MB

So I guess my "hangs" were likely due to the ">4GB bounce-buffer bug" 
and not a locking bug.

Any clue when the bounce-buffers are going to get fixed?  (Andy?)  Is 
there anything I can do to help them along?


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