# System lockup on Phenom!

## Nosferat0

Hi!

Got a new rig containing a Phenom x4 9600 Black Edition.

Have tried to install Gentoo two(2) times, both with failure!

First install went "smooth"(some problems), but emerge failed when building qt4. Got segmentation faults and random system lockup, tried to rebuild gcc and glibc but emerge failed to build them with the same error as with qt4. Had the "-j" optimization flag in make.conf set to "-j4", did lower it to "-j2".. only change in emerge is that it fails later on while compiling.

Installed "htop", did some observations on the core activity while compiling packages. It seems like when a core is at 100% load a longer time then it "bug out" and leave the 

Core "loadmeter"(activitymeter) with "nan%" for that specific core. Did try with the "TLB fix" enabled & disabled in BIOS, no change at all!

Tried with the Vanilla 2.6.26-rc7 kernel, no change.

At that point there where only one thing to do... REINSTALL!

Booted the Gentoo InstallCD, this time I started on a Stage1 setup (first install where Stage3). But this time things started to get very annoying, got the "Segmentation" finger in my face 

while unpacking the Stage1 tarball.... tried 4times (4 reboots). Fourth try where successfully, but before that I had both kernel panics and segmentation faults....

Since Wiruza Vista 64Bit runs as it should on the same system I thought it was a Linux specific problem...

Booted Ubunto LiveCD, and guess what!!! NO PROBLEMS AT ALL, tried various applications without any lockups or other errors.

Gentoo have been my primary OS in many years so I don't feel like replacing it!

If you have any idea or any information on how to fix this then please help me.

I could post pictures on kernel output, emerge etc. If needed!

Is it possible to install Gentoo from a Ubunto LiveCD!?

My rig:

AMD Phenom X4 9600 Black Edition

Gigabyte MA790FX-DQ6 (with F3 bios)

OCZ Reaper 8500 2x1GB Modules (at 1066, Unganged mode)

Sapphire Radeon HD3870 512MB

OCZ GameXStream 700W

Western Digital 500GB SATA

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## Nosferat0

Got pic on kernel output when running bootstrap.

http://img504.imageshack.us/img504/4943/sl552080xb6.th.jpg

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## jmbsvicetto

Hi.

Have you tested the memory of your system? It seems like you're having hardware issues. Also, what kernel sources are you trying? Looking at http://sources.gentoo.org/viewcvs.py/gentoo-x86/sys-kernel/vanilla-sources/ the more recent version I see is vanilla-sources-2.6.24_rc8.

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## Nosferat0

Got Gentoo installed now, happy me that Ubuntu got "chroot" and all the necessary tools needed.

Had one Machine Expection, that one was certain about the TLB bug... Was the same address as in the "TLB bug" errata, L3 cache error!

So the "internal segmentation faults" isn't related to the TLB, tried to clock down the CPU a bit ( from 2300MHz to 2260MHz ).. Problem gone!

Also tested the memories, all ok. 1hr test!

Isn't there a way to "tweak" the compiler so it is possible to overclock CPU, FSB etc.. ?

Got waterchilling on both CPU and GPU so I have wanted to test to press my system a bit....

And, is there anyone who know how to get & install the "L2 Eviction" patch!?

Have found the patch but I don't know how to apply it on the kernel, tried the standard "patch -p0 < PATCH".. but it fails on most of the chunks.

Tried on gentoo-sources-2.6.23-r6 and vanilla-2.6.23.9

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## jkomar

You can get the patch here. I applied it simply with 

```
patch -p1 < amd298.patch
```

 using gentoo-sources 2.6.23-r3. I was getting the errata 298 issue quite a bit on the initial build of my Gentoo box. Since applying the patch, I haven't seen it pop up again and I was unable to notice a performance hit. The one thing I did notice though was an issue with VMware where the vmmon kernel module doesn't seem to play well with the patch. I posted my issue in the VMware community forums and hopefully someone will come up with some kind of a solution for me. You can see the post here.

Cheers,

Jason

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## obrut<-

here is the patch's original source:

https://www.x86-64.org/pipermail/discuss/2007-December/010260.html

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## Nosferat0

Thanks for your help mate.

Seems like the patch works good, but as I predicted... new problems popped up.

Now I got "Unknown symbol: e298_bug" when I try to load the FGLRX driver!

Is there a way to bypass that?

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## jkomar

 *Nosferat0 wrote:*   

> Thanks for your help mate.
> 
> Seems like the patch works good, but as I predicted... new problems popped up.
> 
> Now I got "Unknown symbol: e298_bug" when I try to load the FGLRX driver!
> ...

 

I get the same issue with the vmmon module for VMware. I've been looking for a solution for days and I haven't found anything yet.

Jason

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## Nosferat0

Oki doki, then we need to solve this issue!

Going to take a little powernap, my eyes is like...   :Shocked: 

Will try to find a way to trick the modules that the symbol is legal and not unknown, must be some way to do it..

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## massimo

No problem at all here with my Phenom 9500 on an Asrock mobo with 4GB of memory. No TLB patch, neither in BIOS nor in kernel. The last few days I've been running video encoding processes (avidemux with x264 libs: dvb recording -> h264) that used all 4 cores intensivly - not a single glitch.

arch: x86

sources: 2.6.24-zen1

If you want some more information about, e.g., .config let me know.

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## Nosferat0

Hi!

Yeah, spec on your kernel config would be nice.

Have found that the file "pgtable.h" defines "extern unsigned e298_bug;", I think the patch uses a global variable to activate/disable the TLB-patch allaround in the kernel.

Have an idea to move the "extern unsigned e298_bug;" statement to a "pgbypass.h" file and include it in all files necessary, but since the FGLRX driver link it self with something in the kernel then I can't really tell if this will work.. ..  :Sad: 

For now I'll use the unpatched kernel.

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## Nosferat0

Hi!

Found out that it is possible to get around the "Unknown symbol" if you compile the kernel-module you want with an unpatched kerneltree,

so what I did was:

emerge gentoo-sources

cp config /usr/src/linux/

cd /usr/src/linux

make

emerge ati-drivers

modprobe fglrx

Notice that I DIDN'T install the new kernel, I still run the patched one. 

Now I can't wait on the 2GB extra ram and HD3870X2 that I ordered yesterday...

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## massimo

 *Nosferat0 wrote:*   

> Hi!
> 
> Yeah, spec on your kernel config would be nice.

 

Hope that helps [1].

[1] http://pastebin.ca/885510

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