Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!usc!samsung!umich!sharkey!wyn386!wybbs!douglas
From: douglas@wybbs.mi.org (Douglas Mason)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.lans
Subject: Re: NOVELL - Abend: NMI interrupt (memory parity error).
Keywords: error, NMI, diags_unsuccessful, help/suggestions_needed
Message-ID: <539@wybbs.mi.org>
Date: 14 Nov 90 04:27:57 GMT
References: <1990Nov6.155258.8676@cs.odu.edu>
Reply-To: douglas@wybbs.UUCP (Douglas Mason)
Distribution: usa
Organization: Consultants Connection, Jenison MI
Lines: 44



Something you didn't mention was what type of topology you are running --
we had some simular problems under Netware 386 3.1 with some ethernet cards
we were running, which caused all kinds of memory pool and buffer problems,
coming from almost mysterious locations, memory dumps, etc.

Don't know if anyone found this out quite like I did, but I found an error
that apparently Novell is "working on", but as much as I try to follow the
news, hasn't spread around too much.

On Netware 386 ver 3.1, I was using FILER to completely kill some Open
Systems directories that were going to be re-transferred (via Novell's
UPGRADE utility).

I went in to "directory contents" and selected an entire directory to delete.
FILER just sat there, then about 3 seconds later, the fileserver crashed in
a big way.  I knew that I was the only person on the server at the time, but
hoping for the best, I re-booted the server, and tried again.  Same thing
happened.

After a few calls I learned that Netware 386 v3.1 has a bug that when you
try to deleted a directory structure (using FILER, Directory Master, etc)
with more than 8 trustees assigned to it, the server crashes.  Quite a 
major bug.

Also, we are running 2 Micropolis 630meg (formatted) ESDI drives in it and
I set the block size for the volumes as 4k blocks.  When I use Norton, 
Directory Master or any other utilities, it seems to think that there are
8k blocks out there.  Who is right?  I know that generally non-Novell
utilities are not too good at looking at volume setups like that, but
many other strange things with large files have been happening and I
wondered if there was any sure way of checking the block size.

Other than that, Netware 386 seems to be pretty damn nice.  Due to financial
conditions, we tried to run 3.1 on an Acer 386/20 with 4 megs of ram.  With
that amount of memory, we couldn't use 4k block sizes on 1.3 gigs of storage
and successfully mount the volumes.  Now with 8 megs we can mount the volumes,
but....

I welcome and comments/threats/suggestions....!


| Douglas Mason | System Administrator | ITM Corporation | Grand Rapids, Mich |