I'm running the same. A Tyan Tiger MP (S2460) with 2xAthlon 1700XP's. My
machine locked up quite a bit at first with unbuffered (unregistered)
DDR SDRAM. After fighting with it for some time (having swapped the
nVidia card with a Radeon 7500 and built the latest bleeding edge
kernel), the machine continued to lockup without any perceptible system
load (ie, nothing running, CPUs are cool, and *wonk* - system lockup).
One of the kernel developers suggested that I invest in 1G of ECC
Registered 266Mhz DDR SDRAM and give it a try again. The idle-system
lockups stopped.
It seems that Tyan mobo's are finicky about memory (particularly the
earlier Tiger MP models). In fact, the mobo manual says that you cannot
put more than 3G of SDRAM into the box, even though it has 4 DIMM rows.
The mobo chipset simply can't drive that much. I've seen this fact
mentioned in a few different places now, so I tend to agree with vendors
who are reporting problems with Tyan mobo memory problems. In fact, at
least one IDE RAID vendor (3ware) recently told a user on the
linux-ide-raid mailing list that there were known issues with weirdness
on Tyan mobos. Try paring your system back to ONE memory stick and see
if you have the same problem.
In theory, registered (buffered) memory "should" fix the problem
(unloading the need for the bus to drive the memory somewhat), but I've
learned from experience that VIA mobo chipsets typically have weird
flaky unexplainable problems when you try to use registered memory (it's
primarily an Intel mobo chipset thing).
So, as I wished to "play it safe" and have a bit of piece of mind that
the memory was NOT causing the lockups, I invested in a bit of mildly
expensive ECC memory.
Then there's the heat issue. Under high-CPU load, my procs climb from
45C to somewhere around 58C. Around 60C, the machine locks solid. With
my case open, the temperature never seems to climb beyond 56C, but that
is a razor thing margin. This is with a Lian Li case as well. Those
suckers get HOT! Heck, I'm seriously looking into water cooling now.
To this day, I still can't close my case up if I want to do serious
number crunching, but my system is ROCK SOLID (reboots are of my own
volition, not due to hardware problems).
So, to answer your question, heat and memory are probably your biggest
enemies. Sure, power can be a problem as well (you ARE using a 400W
power supply, right?!), but from PAINFUL experience I can tell you that
it is probably one of the first two things.
- Ian C. Blenke <icblenke@nks.net>
On Wed, 2002-08-07 at 20:01, Austin Theen wrote:
> Al,
> My current workstation is a Tyan Tiger MP with 2x 60GB IBM 120GXPs and
> 1GB Reg-ECC DDR with a ATI All in Wonder RADEON. Running SuSE 8.0.
> I can assure you with the latest BIOS and firmware from Tyan, there are
> no problems with my motherboard. I have Super ORBs on both CPUs and the
> case is a Lian Li PC-60 with 5 3200rpm 80mm Case Fans. I have Firewire
> and a TV-Tuner all making heat a major issue.
>
> Couple of questions:
> What heat sinks are you using on your Athlon MPs?
> Is the case well vented? Case Fans? Airflow in the case?
> Is RC project the distributed net client? Does this run under XP ok?
>
> On Wed, 2002-08-07 at 19:47, Al Miller wrote:
> > Hi All,
> > I've been lurking for quite a while, but I need some direction now. I
> > finally bought my "monster" system. Two 50 gig HD with 1.5 gig on the
> > board. CD RW and 52X CD. I have a DSL connection and Creative music.
> > Here's the problem. I am running a dual boot system. XP Pro (dog) on
> > one HD (hda) and Red Hat 7.1 on hdb. I boot from a floppy to keep the
> > systems separate. The XP runs for three days b/4 freezing. (Usual
> > Windows) That happened b/4 I installed Red Hat.
> >
> > The Red Hat 7.1 install was uneventful (easy). I can get on the 'net
> > with Netscape without problems. Both processors will run on the "RC"
> > project. Here's the problem. After a few hours, the Linux machine
> > freezes. My only avenue for rebooting is to turn the power off. (My
> > machine does complain!!) It forces a file system check and the
> > necessary repairs are made.
> >
> > It's a hardware problem!!?? I have a Tyan mb Tiger MP S2460 with dual
> > AMD MP 1.4 gig. This board is not on the compatibility list. I found
> > that out yesterday.
> >
> > 1. Do I have to scrap the mb and get a Thunderbird (on the OK hardware
> > list).
> >
> > or
> >
> > 2. Is there a command line correction at boot or an update with RH 7.3?
> >
> > or
> >
> > 3. Something else?
> >
> > TIA,
> >
> > Al Miller
> >
> >
>
>
>
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