Richard Rauch writes:

> I'm not sure how general of a problem this is, so I'm posting to both
> port-i386 and netbsd-help.
> 
> Ever since upgrading to 1.4 in May, I've seen my NetBSD box lock up under
> semi-predictable circumstances.  The general requirements seem to be:
> 
>   Run X.
>   Do something that puts a heavy CPU strain on the system.

I get a similar problem, except that the machine in question does not
run an X server at all, so I doubt your problem is X related.

The problem definitely seems to be load related, possibly nice'd load
related.  In my case the load was MP3 encoding (positive nice) or mp3
playing (negative nice).  The latter did not come close to 100%, but
loads it more than usual.

SETI@Home is perhaps positively niced on your box?

> The system locks up tight.  It seems to suspend network communications,
> and certainly freezes the X console (even <ctrl>-<alt>-<backspace> won't
> do anything).  In one case, a sound sample that was playing (in Quake II)
> seemed to get stuck in an endless cycle.

In my case (playing mp3's) the sound stopped dead.  Almost definitely
hardware specific what the failure mode is.

The wscons console is also locked solid for me.

> Has anyone seen similar problems?  This does NOT happen during normal use
> (e.g., the daily events at 3am run normally; email is sent & received;
> one can telnet or FTP, etc...).  It ONLY seems to happen when one makes
> heavy use of the CPU while X is up and running.

Yes, minus X...

> (As circumstantial evidence that X has to be running, I have managed to
> get one SETI data set processed with just the wscons up.  But with X
> running, it locks up (as I recall) within 15 or 30 minutes.)

Hmmm, I've got this once every few days/weeks.  Also after jumping to
1.4 (current).  I was waiting until I could comple in DDB to send-pr
it, but other problems have delayed that.

I can't reproduce it at all reliably, except that it has never hung
without reasonably high CPU loading.

/var/run/dmesg.boot appended.  CPU is 300 (psuedo-cyrix) MHz.

Dave

-------------

NetBSD 1.4D (TEQUILA) #18: Wed Jun 23 09:56:57 NZST 1999
    dave@tequila.dave.dtsp.co.nz:/vol/tequila/userC/NetBSD-current/src/sys/arch/i386/compile/TEQUILA
cpu0: family 6 model 0 step 0
cpu0: Cyrix 6x86MX (686-class)
total memory = 127 MB
avail memory = 116 MB
using 1659 buffers containing 6636 KB of memory
mainbus0 (root)
pci0 at mainbus0 bus 0: configuration mode 1
pci0: i/o enabled, memory enabled
pchb0 at pci0 dev 0 function 0
pchb0: VIA Technologies VT82C597 (Apollo VP3) Host-PCI Bridge (rev. 0x04)
ppb0 at pci0 dev 1 function 0: VIA Technologies VT82C598 (Apollo MVP3) PCI-AGP (rev. 0x00)
pci1 at ppb0 bus 1
pci1: i/o enabled, memory enabled
pcib0 at pci0 dev 7 function 0
pcib0: VIA Technologies VT82C586 (Apollo VP) PCI-ISA Bridge (rev. 0x41)
pciide0 at pci0 dev 7 function 1: VIA Technologies VT82C586A IDE Controller
pciide0: bus-master DMA support present
pciide0: primary channel configured to compatibility mode
wd0 at pciide0 channel 0 drive 0: <Maxtor 91008D7>
wd0: drive supports 16-sector pio transfers, lba addressing
wd0: 9617MB, 16383 cyl, 16 head, 63 sec, 512 bytes/sect x 19696320 sectors
wd0: 32-bits data port
wd0: drive supports PIO mode 4, DMA mode 2, Ultra-DMA mode 2
pciide0: primary channel interrupting at irq 14
pciide0: secondary channel configured to compatibility mode
pciide0: disabling secondary channel (no drives)
wd0(pciide0:0:0): using PIO mode 4, Ultra-DMA mode 2 (using DMA data transfers)
VIA Technologies VT83C572 USB Controller (USB serial bus, revision 0x02) at pci0 dev 7 function 2 not configured
pchb1 at pci0 dev 7 function 3
pchb1: VIA Technologies VT82C586 (Apollo VP) Power Management Controller (rev. 0x10)
vga0 at pci0 dev 8 function 0: S3 Trio32/64 (rev. 0x00)
wsdisplay0 at vga0: console (80x25, vt100 emulation)
de0 at pci0 dev 9 function 0
de0: interrupting at irq 12
de0: 21140A [10-100Mb/s] pass 2.0
de0: address 00:80:48:e9:0a:75
ncr0 at pci0 dev 10 function 0: ncr 53c875j fast20 wide scsi
ncr0: interrupting at irq 7
ncr0: minsync=12, maxsync=137, maxoffs=16, 128 dwords burst, large dma fifo
ncr0: single-ended, open drain IRQ driver, using on-chip SRAM
ncr0: restart (scsi reset).
scsibus0 at ncr0: 16 targets, 8 luns per target
st0 at scsibus0 targ 2 lun 0: <CONNER, CTT8000-S, 1.17> SCSI2 1/sequential removable
st0: st0(ncr0:2:0): 5.0 MB/s (200 ns, offset 15)
drive empty
sd0 at scsibus0 targ 3 lun 0: <SEAGATE, ST51080N, 0943> SCSI2 0/direct fixed
sd0(ncr0:3:0): 10.0 MB/s (100 ns, offset 15)
sd0: 1030 MB, 4826 cyl, 4 head, 109 sec, 512 bytes/sect x 2109840 sectors
sd1 at scsibus0 targ 5 lun 0: <QUANTUM, FIREBALL_TM2110S, 300X> SCSI2 0/direct fixed
sd1(ncr0:5:0): 20.0 MB/s (50 ns, offset 15)
sd1: 2014 MB, 6810 cyl, 4 head, 151 sec, 512 bytes/sect x 4124736 sectors
isa1 at pcib0
ne0 at isa1 port 0x300-0x31f irq 10
ne0: NE2000 Ethernet
ne0: Ethernet address 00:00:b4:23:64:14
com0 at isa1 port 0x3f8-0x3ff irq 4: ns16550a, working fifo
com1 at isa1 port 0x2f8-0x2ff irq 3: ns16550a, working fifo
pckbc0 at isa1 port 0x60-0x64
pckbd0 at pckbc0 (kbd slot)
pckbc0: using irq 1 for kbd slot
wskbd0 at pckbd0: console keyboard, using wsdisplay0
pcppi0 at isa1 port 0x61
midi0 at pcppi0: <PC speaker>
spkr0 at pcppi0
sysbeep0 at pcppi0
isapnp0 at isa1 port 0x279: ISA Plug 'n Play device support
npx0 at isa1 port 0xf0-0xff: using exception 16
fdc0 at isa1 port 0x3f0-0x3f7 irq 6 drq 2
fd0 at fdc0 drive 0: 1.44MB, 80 cyl, 2 head, 18 sec
isapnp0: read port 0x203
isapnp0: <ESS ES1868 Plug and Play AudioD, ESS0000, , > port 0x800/8 not configured
ess0 at isapnp0 port 0x220/16,0x388/4,0x330/2 irq 5 drq 1,0
ess0:: ESS Technology ES1868 [version 0x688b]
ess0: audio1 interrupting at irq 5
audio0 at ess0: half duplex
opl0 at ess0: model OPL3
midi1 at opl0: <ESS Yamaha OPL3>
isapnp0: <ESS ES1868 Plug and Play AudioD, ESS0001, , > port 0x201/1 not configured
isapnp0: <ESS ES1868 Plug and Play AudioD, ESS0002, , > port 0x168/8,0x36e/2 irq 10 not configured
biomask 40c0 netmask 54c0 ttymask 54c2
WARNING: old BSD partition ID!
WARNING: old BSD partition ID!
boot device: sd0
root on sd0a dumps on sd0b
root file system type: ffs