Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cs.utexas.edu!rice!rice!sun-spots-request From: williams@nssdcs.gsfc.nasa.gov (Jim Williams (SYSGROUP)) Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun Subject: Re: Memory problem with SUN 4/330 Keywords: Hardware Message-ID: <1990Aug9.022154.6926@rice.edu> Date: 8 Aug 90 19:07:06 GMT Sender: sun-spots-request@rice.edu Organization: Sun-Spots Lines: 63 Approved: Sun-Spots@rice.edu Originator: spots@titan.rice.edu X-Sun-Spots-Digest: Volume 9, Issue 295, message 7 In article <1990Aug7.003345.1862@rice.edu> huebener@fbihh.informatik.uni-hamburg.de (Kai Huebener) writes: -X-Sun-Spots-Digest: Volume 9, Issue 295, message 4 - -One of our SUN4/330s is behaving strangely since two weeks: Every now and -then we will get a message like - -vmunix: Parity Error: Physical Address .... -vmunix: Memory Error in SIMM U801 on First 3U Memory Card: -vmunix: panic: synchronous parity error - kernel - -and so on. - -The system will then either reboot or fall into the watchdog reset. - Well, I didn't have exactly that problem, but mine was similar enough that I thought I'd pass it along. We just upgraded a Sun 4/110 to a Sun 4/330, and at the same time went from SunOS 4.0.3 to 4.1. Note that "upgrade" in this case is a euphemism; the only parts of the old system that remain are the disks and the monitor! (Alas, I had to give up my beloved type 3 keyboard for one of those wretched type 4s...) Other hardware details: the system has 8MB of memory, a shoebox with SCSI disk and tape, and a third party box with a Maxtor XT-8760E 550MByte scsi disk. The disk in the shoebox, sd0, is a 320MByte Micropolis 1558 connected to an Emulex MD21 controller. The video is a cg6 color frame buffer. Anyway, I was unable to boot the system after reconnecting the disks. Sun was unable to explain why this should be, given that the kernel architectures of the two machines are identical. So, since I had to reinstall the OS anyway, this seemed like a good time to go to SunOS 4.1. (I would very much like to know why the old disk would not boot. Sun could never give me an adequate explaination.) After I installed SunOS 4.1, I tried running X windows. This is the X11 R4 server, straight from MIT. It crashed the machine in a spectacular fashion. I got the error message below, which is much like the one quoted above. Parity Error: Physical Address 0xff1bc00 (Virtual Address 0xf74a0000) Error Register 21cd0 Memory error somewhere in SIMMs U1284 through U1287 on CPU card. panic: Anychronous parity error. -DVMA operation Syncing file systems. (This is not an exact, verbatim copy, but it is very close. All the numbers given are verbatim. "Asynchronous" really was spelled "Anychronous"..) Our Sun service guy replaced first the CPU, then the CG6, but the problem remained. Starting X would *always* crash the machine with the above message. When crashed in this way, not even L1-A would be recognized! I had to *power cycle* the machine. That's by far the worst I've ever seen a user-mode, non-setuid program do. The problem was solved by recompiling the X11 server and some of the clients. We've had no problems since. Anyone understand all this? Spoken: Jim Williams Domain: williams@nssdcs.gsfc.nasa.gov Phone: +1-301-555-1212 UUCP: uunet!mimsy!williams USPS: NASA/GSFC, Code 633, Greenbelt, MD 20771 Motto: There is no 'd' in "kluge"! It rhymes with "deluge", not "sludge".