Ok, do not worry about slic. I'll do it later. I have a 20GB hdd which I currently use for booting up the ram image that I flash the bios from... (I currently don't have my memory stick, that's why I need a HDD for that). Does it matter if I get a RW report from a 32 or 64bit system? I think I will install Windows 7 on it for testing if it's required. I can dual boot it with this little ISO image for bios flashing (I am using Windows BCD to boot it anyway) I have moved the pagefile over from the sata hdd back to my IDE connected hdd and it's been running over an hour now. I still have a feeling there is a problem with the sata controller. BTW. In CPUz -> Memory Tab: DRAM frequency is at 133MHz. I think it detected the slowest ram stick.
No, 32-bit or 64-bit does not matter. It should be against the exact BIOS that you want to add a SLIC to. Let me know how you do...I'd really like to put the Opteron 250 freezing/lockup problem to rest. If you think it's worth posting a v2.17 w/o the PowerNow mod, let me know...I can probably do that later tonight (going out to a Super Bowl party now soon). Update: Here's some of my HDAMB's CPU-Z screens...when I toggle the Processor Selection, I have the same info. Just remember that the HDAMB is a workstation board with AGP and only 1 bank for the memory. Also for my board, only CPU-Z v1.54 shows the correct CPU CoreVID.
Have fun at the party I just finished applying Windows 7 WIM image to the 20GB HDD (I applied it on my pc, it will finish installing itself when I plug it in to the server). After receiving a punch in the motherboard area + moving the page file it's been running for 3 hours. (It can work for two weeks and then freeze , that happened before) I will avoid the activation problem by temporaily using an KMS activation crack :/ (Will revert to the legit product key later when it's all done) Are you running the 2.18 or the 2.17? OR is HDAMB using a different bios? I think it's worth giving the 2.17 a go. Maybe it'll fix it If that does not help. I will search for/buy the 280's. If I find the retail ones...
It froze again this night. I have the E4 stepping in the revision section of cpuz. Should I try the BIOS from the first page? Edit. I misread i am going to flash it now... Edit 2: Flashed in and the HT link is still 200mhz on CPU 1 :/ I will see how long it lasts with no freeze. Just froze again. This time I was actually logged on to it and using it. Firstly applications start to not-respond but the OS works. Then everything kind of 'shuts down' and nothing responds apart from things that are in RAM... That's why the internet works now. RRAS is launched and loaded to RAM What a piece of ****. I was thinking it could have been caused by SpeedFan running as a service but I've had it freezing before it too. I will stop using it for now. I remember that launching CPUZ concurrently with Speedfan cause the whole system to malfunction. In the end it would not detect any sensors... Reverted to 2.18 since 2.17 did not help and also it did not work with the phantom card thing. I couldn't telnet into the bios.
Can you try one thing? Go into the BIOS and pick setup defaults. Then go to the memory section and turn off the Chip Kill feature...perhaps your memory is getting lots of errors and the correction is slowing down the PC? Or you are getting a ton of interrupts from some component you have installed? Can you boot a Linux LiveCD and monitor the interrupts counters? Ex: cat /proc/interrupts
Atm I feel like throwing this server away. All my Sata hdds had disappeared from Windows (Device can not start 10) (i had to change the driver). When ChipKill is disabled Windows does not even boot. It restarts before the progressbar appers... Regarding to interupts, I have no other components installed, my PCI slots are empty. I've attached a CPUz HTML report. If you look at the timings section of each of my ram stick you will see that the 2GB units have only got 166MHz to 200MHz. The 512MB sticks have only got 100MHz and 133MHz. Maybe they are not compatible?
That is definitely going to be a problem. These K8 Opterons only support DDR-333 or DDR-400 ECC-REG memory. I guess the Arima BIOS check routines for the memory are not so robust. 2GB sticks are DDR-333 (166MHz) / DDR-400 (200MHz). 512MB sticks are DDR-200 (100MHz) / DDR-266 (133MHz). You've been essentially overclocking the 512MB sticks. Please remove all of them and reset the BIOS to defaults. You probably want to configure the HT CPU-to-CPU=1GHz and the HT CPU-to-Chipset (Golem0) = 800MHz.
I will remove them in a minute. I have ordered 2x 2GB more RAM from ebay (DDR 333). Anyways, I was suspecting them to be a problem but since the server used to hang even when I only had 4x 512MB sticks (no 2x 2GB) I thought it would not be a problem. Report back in a a few minutes...
Removed. It booted like usual but the HT speed hasnt changed on the CPU1. It's still 200MHz. CPU0 is 800MHz as selected in BIOS. Any other clues? FYI. There are no RAM sticks in the bank 1 at the moment. The 2x 2GB are in bank 0. DRAM frequency is still at 200MHz.
I edited my last post before I saw your last two posts. Please reset the BIOS to defaults and then customize the two HT speeds to 1GHz and 800MHz as described.
I have done this. My settings are 1GHz and 800 MHz respectively. I have noticed there has been no Corrected Memory Error in the system event log since I took the 512RAM sticks out. Maybe it'll stop freezing :/
So which BIOS are you using now? The v2.17 + SI 5.5.0.0 + ACPI FACP + ACPI DSDT PowerNow for Opteron 250?
I'm using 2.18B + SLIC + PowerNOW for Opteron 250... + SI 5.5.0.0 The one from first page with manually integated SLIC. I think it's this one but I don't remember because I downloaded it a while ago... HDAMA-G BIOS v2.18B + Silicon Image 3114 ROM v5.5.0.0 + ACPI DSDT PowerNow for Opteron 250 OSA250FAA5BL BTW. Is the difference between Opterons 250s and 280s noticable..? Is is possible that memory errors were caused because of the different HT link speed? (I think this question will answer itself when the new ram sticks arrive in a couple of days.. )
I would recommend that you try running memtest86+ on the server to test the memory (let it run overnight). It should be able to tell if the memory is outright bad. If that doesn't flush anything out in the open, I would try running each cpu in the server one at a time and see if you get crashes (not sure which socket you would need to place the cpu in).
Ok, I was just curious if you started trying the v2.17 mods yet. If you're still on the v2.18, then please stick with that. All of the v2.18 ACPI modules I merged back into the v2.17 modded one. Your question is very subjective to your use-case. For a file server, it would probably be overkill. If you're doing any video [re-]encoding then it would probably be worth it. Aside from the OS-hardware level stuff like context-switching on each dual-core CPU, the big benefit would be from the extra cores in general.
Well, I am only a home user with 5 client PC (my mums, dads, two mine(desktop and one tablet for college ) and one spare (barely working )). I actually run almost all possible server roles on it because my home network is one server based (I know, there should be at least two but I cant afford a second server :/). I need to give it as much RAM as I can because 4GB is not enough, it's fully used up. I will try to get at it up to 16GB limit when I get more money (and make sure it does not freeze). I am also virtualizing a small Linux server for a home PBX. This only uses around 100 MB of ram (thanks to linux) but still uses up to 15% of the processor when in a call, 0% when idle . I host Exchange 2010 on it, my personal BLOG for my college course, WDS for installing Windows over network and a few more things... and of course it's the router (plus IPv6 tunnel) is well. That's why I really want to maintain it working. I don't want my exchange database to get corrupted because of freezes and that stuff. I will consider the CPU upgrade. Let's get RAM and the HT freqency sorted. I hope that adding ram into the Bank 1 (CPU 1) which is empty atm will not cause any memory errors... BTW. I tried the 2.17 mod and it worked but got a freeze and additionally the phantom card thing (the thing you can telnet to and see the screen and bios) did not work so I went back to 2.18.
Ok, then perhaps there's more to the 2.18 BIOS that's not documented. Thanks for testing...I should probably remove the 2.17 mods with the ACPI fixes from the first page then. Wow, that's some pretty good use out of the box. You could definitely use the dual 280's or higher. Just don't forget that you'll probably need a better heatsink designed for the TDP of the Opteron dual-core E6's. I bought mine off of eBay and they were genuine & brand new AMD dual-core heatsinks + fans (the kind with the heat pipes) for around $13 USD. Keep me posted...I usually check the forums a few times a day.