[gentoo-user] ~amd64 compatibility with modern cpus

[gentoo-user] ~amd64 compatibility with modern cpus

[felix]

Something went haywire with my 8 or 9 year old dual Opteron ~amd64 system last night.  I may have a bricked system.  I haven't given up yet, but I may have to buy a replacement system.  I have external USB drive backups, but the only other computer I have right now is an old Mac laptop which can't read Linux LVM partitions.

Questions:

    1.  I don't remember, and can't look up, the make.conf processor flags I emerge with.  But it is dual Opterons, and ~amd64.  How compatible could that be with modern Intel CPUs?  I know Intel adopted the extra registers of the AMD64 instruction set, but are there other differences which would prevent an Opteron system from running as is under an Intel processor?  Maybe AMD still sells Opterons, and I will be stuck with building a system.

    2.  Is it feasible to buy some commodity box, like from Dell, with an Intel processor, and plug in my two SATA SSD drives and get a console boot?  I don't give a fig right now about any GUI interface, and even Internet is not the problem.  If it will boot and run emerges, I can import the source files for X and Ethernet and other peripherals via USB stick.  But SATA drivers ...

    3.  My kernels always have just about every driver compiled in as modules, an old habit from when I used to swap in PCI cards like crazy.  I don't remember now how many SATA drivers are built in and how many are modules; if the commodity box needs SATA drivers which aren't built in, that could get tricky.  Are there boot command line options to preload certain modules?  Might not do me any good.  I think I could scrape by with USB modules, but not SATA.

For the curious, here is wat happened.  When I left off last night, the USB keyboard was only recognized when I unplugged all other USB devices, and the system hung at the grub point, with a blank screen.

    A reboot failed because it couldn't find the root=/dev/sde drive.  But the USB keyboard was working because I used it in grub to select a new 3.7.0 kernel (had been running 3.6.8).

    A second reboot ignored the USB keyboard and generated an ATA error I had never seen before for every ATA drive and some I don't have, all the way up to ATA13 before I rebooted it again.  I haven't got it to boot even this far since, so I can't regenerate that error.  There was a 5 second or so delay between these errors, making me think the ATAnn designator might not be different drives, just retries.

    It booted a rescue DVD, but without the keyboard it was kind of pointless, and it hung after showing two lines which I believe are unrelated other than a place marker (generating xxx key, generating RSA key).

    The keyboard wasn't even recognized by the BIOS.  I finally disconnected every USB device, all the ubs, and then the keyboard worked.

    But when I left it last night, it wouldn't even bring up the grub screen.  All the BIOS screens show the usual disk drives.

The system was working perfectly fine before all hell broke loose.  The keyboard was recognized during grub the first time, but after that only if all other USB devices were disconnected.  The disk drives acted funny during the boot, first with the unknown root- device error, then with the funky ATA errors, and finally with not even bringing up grub.

I will try some more desperate tricks today, like reconnecting the USB pile to see if it at least boots the disks again - is my choice between disks and keyboard?  I will find out.  My best guess right now is that booting 3.7.0 is what clobbered things; whether I added a option which loaded bad firmware, or 3.7.0 is broken, I have no idea.  It could well be something unrelated to 3.7.0.  My goal for today is to try to get keyboard and disk working, then boot with 3.6.8.

-- 
Felix Finch, a la mode

Re: [gentoo-user] ~amd64 compatibility with modern cpus

[Michael Mol]

(Admittedly quick and dirty response)

On Fri, Dec 14, 2012 at 11:18 AM,  <felix@crowfix.com> wrote:
> Something went haywire with my 8 or 9 year old dual Opteron ~amd64 system last night.  I may have a bricked system.  I haven't given up yet, but I may have to buy a replacement system.  I have external USB drive backups, but the only other computer I have right now is an old Mac laptop which can't read Linux LVM partitions.
>
> Questions:
>
>     1.  I don't remember, and can't look up, the make.conf processor flags I emerge with.  But it is dual Opterons, and ~amd64.  How compatible could that be with modern Intel CPUs?  I know Intel adopted the extra registers of the AMD64 instruction set, but are there other differences which would prevent an Opteron system from running as is under an Intel processor?  Maybe AMD still sells Opterons, and I will be stuck with building a system.

I'm not aware of any currently-sold AMD or Intel x86 processors
(except, *maybe* Atom) which don't handily support x86_64. You should
have no problem here.

>
>     2.  Is it feasible to buy some commodity box, like from Dell, with an Intel processor, and plug in my two SATA SSD drives and get a console boot?  I don't give a fig right now about any GUI interface, and even Internet is not the problem.  If it will boot and run emerges, I can import the source files for X and Ethernet and other peripherals via USB stick.  But SATA drivers ...

Depends on if you have the necessary drivers installed, but yes, it's
a recoverable scenario. You might need to boot a live CD and compile
and install a kernel with the right drivers. It'd be like installing
Gentoo fresh, but skipping 95% of the handbook.

>
>     3.  My kernels always have just about every driver compiled in as modules, an old habit from when I used to swap in PCI cards like crazy.  I don't remember now how many SATA drivers are built in and how many are modules; if the commodity box needs SATA drivers which aren't built in, that could get tricky.  Are there boot command line options to preload certain modules?  Might not do me any good.  I think I could scrape by with USB modules, but not SATA.

NAFAIK. I'd just use the Gentoo live CD image.

>
> For the curious, here is wat happened.  When I left off last night, the USB keyboard was only recognized when I unplugged all other USB devices, and the system hung at the grub point, with a blank screen.
>
>     A reboot failed because it couldn't find the root=/dev/sde drive.  But the USB keyboard was working because I used it in grub to select a new 3.7.0 kernel (had been running 3.6.8).
>
>     A second reboot ignored the USB keyboard and generated an ATA error I had never seen before for every ATA drive and some I don't have, all the way up to ATA13 before I rebooted it again.  I haven't got it to boot even this far since, so I can't regenerate that error.  There was a 5 second or so delay between these errors, making me think the ATAnn designator might not be different drives, just retries.
>
>     It booted a rescue DVD, but without the keyboard it was kind of pointless, and it hung after showing two lines which I believe are unrelated other than a place marker (generating xxx key, generating RSA key).
>
>     The keyboard wasn't even recognized by the BIOS.  I finally disconnected every USB device, all the ubs, and then the keyboard worked.
>
>     But when I left it last night, it wouldn't even bring up the grub screen.  All the BIOS screens show the usual disk drives.
>
> The system was working perfectly fine before all hell broke loose.  The keyboard was recognized during grub the first time, but after that only if all other USB devices were disconnected.  The disk drives acted funny during the boot, first with the unknown root- device error, then with the funky ATA errors, and finally with not even bringing up grub.
>
> I will try some more desperate tricks today, like reconnecting the USB pile to see if it at least boots the disks again - is my choice between disks and keyboard?  I will find out.  My best guess right now is that booting 3.7.0 is what clobbered things; whether I added a option which loaded bad firmware, or 3.7.0 is broken, I have no idea.  It could well be something unrelated to 3.7.0.  My goal for today is to try to get keyboard and disk working, then boot with 3.6.8.

Pull out an old PS2 keyboard. Sometimes, that's the easiest way to get
things going.

--
:wq

Re: [gentoo-user] ~amd64 compatibility with modern cpus

[felix]

On Fri, Dec 14, 2012 at 11:28:41AM -0500, Michael Mol wrote:
> (Admittedly quick and dirty response)

Much appreciated.  Gives me some hope ...

> Pull out an old PS2 keyboard. Sometimes, that's the easiest way to get
> things going.

I thought of that -- don't have any.  They all got recycled a few years back :-(

-- 
Felix Finch, a la mode

Re: [gentoo-user] ~amd64 compatibility with modern cpus

[Florian Philipp]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 3070 bytes --]

Am 14.12.2012 17:18, schrieb felix@crowfix.com:
> Something went haywire with my 8 or 9 year old dual Opteron ~amd64
> system last night.  I may have a bricked system.  I haven't given up
> yet, but I may have to buy a replacement system.  I have external USB
> drive backups, but the only other computer I have right now is an old
> Mac laptop which can't read Linux LVM partitions.
> 
> Questions:
> 
> 1.  I don't remember, and can't look up, the make.conf processor
> flags I emerge with.  But it is dual Opterons, and ~amd64.  How
> compatible could that be with modern Intel CPUs?  I know Intel
> adopted the extra registers of the AMD64 instruction set, but are
> there other differences which would prevent an Opteron system from
> running as is under an Intel processor?  Maybe AMD still sells
> Opterons, and I will be stuck with building a system.
> 

I guess your Opterons used -march=k8. Except of 3dnow, this should be
compatible. You might be lucky.

> 2.  Is it feasible to buy some commodity box, like from Dell, with an
> Intel processor, and plug in my two SATA SSD drives and get a console
> boot?  I don't give a fig right now about any GUI interface, and even
> Internet is not the problem.  If it will boot and run emerges, I can
> import the source files for X and Ethernet and other peripherals via
> USB stick.  But SATA drivers ...
> 

Yep, SATA drivers will be the biggest issue. Hope you had and will have
AHCI.

> 3.  My kernels always have just about every driver compiled in as
> modules, an old habit from when I used to swap in PCI cards like
> crazy.  I don't remember now how many SATA drivers are built in and
> how many are modules; if the commodity box needs SATA drivers which
> aren't built in, that could get tricky.  Are there boot command line
> options to preload certain modules?  Might not do me any good.  I
> think I could scrape by with USB modules, but not SATA.
> 

Not possible. You need an initrd or a new kernel. How about compiling a
new kernel on a different box and using a memory stick for grub + /boot?

> For the curious, here is wat happened.  When I left off last night,
> the USB keyboard was only recognized when I unplugged all other USB
> devices, and the system hung at the grub point, with a blank screen.
> 
> A reboot failed because it couldn't find the root=/dev/sde drive.
> But the USB keyboard was working because I used it in grub to select
> a new 3.7.0 kernel (had been running 3.6.8).
> 
> A second reboot ignored the USB keyboard and generated an ATA error I
> had never seen before for every ATA drive and some I don't have, all
> the way up to ATA13 before I rebooted it again.  I haven't got it to
> boot even this far since, so I can't regenerate that error.  There
> was a 5 second or so delay between these errors, making me think the
> ATAnn designator might not be different drives, just retries.
> [...]

Could be your south bridge. If you want to keep the system, try a
different board.

Regards,
Florian Philipp


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Re: [gentoo-user] ~amd64 compatibility with modern cpus

[Volker Armin Hemmann]

Am Freitag, 14. Dezember 2012, 11:18:21 schrieb felix@crowfix.com:
> Something went haywire with my 8 or 9 year old dual Opteron ~amd64 system
> last night.  I may have a bricked system.  I haven't given up yet, but I
> may have to buy a replacement system.  I have external USB drive backups,
> but the only other computer I have right now is an old Mac laptop which
> can't read Linux LVM partitions.
> 
> Questions:
> 
>     1.  I don't remember, and can't look up, the make.conf processor flags I
> emerge with.  But it is dual Opterons, and ~amd64.  How compatible could
> that be with modern Intel CPUs?  I know Intel adopted the extra registers
> of the AMD64 instruction set, but are there other differences which would
> prevent an Opteron system from running as is under an Intel processor? 
> Maybe AMD still sells Opterons, and I will be stuck with building a system.
> 
>     2.  Is it feasible to buy some commodity box, like from Dell, with an
> Intel processor, and plug in my two SATA SSD drives and get a console boot?
>  I don't give a fig right now about any GUI interface, and even Internet is
> not the problem.  If it will boot and run emerges, I can import the source
> files for X and Ethernet and other peripherals via USB stick.  But SATA
> drivers ...
> 
>     3.  My kernels always have just about every driver compiled in as
> modules, an old habit from when I used to swap in PCI cards like crazy.  I
> don't remember now how many SATA drivers are built in and how many are
> modules; if the commodity box needs SATA drivers which aren't built in,
> that could get tricky.  Are there boot command line options to preload
> certain modules?  Might not do me any good.  I think I could scrape by with
> USB modules, but not SATA.
> 
> For the curious, here is wat happened.  When I left off last night, the USB
> keyboard was only recognized when I unplugged all other USB devices, and
> the system hung at the grub point, with a blank screen.
> 
>     A reboot failed because it couldn't find the root=/dev/sde drive.  But
> the USB keyboard was working because I used it in grub to select a new
> 3.7.0 kernel (had been running 3.6.8).
> 
>     A second reboot ignored the USB keyboard and generated an ATA error I
> had never seen before for every ATA drive and some I don't have, all the
> way up to ATA13 before I rebooted it again.  I haven't got it to boot even
> this far since, so I can't regenerate that error.  There was a 5 second or
> so delay between these errors, making me think the ATAnn designator might
> not be different drives, just retries.
> 
>     It booted a rescue DVD, but without the keyboard it was kind of
> pointless, and it hung after showing two lines which I believe are
> unrelated other than a place marker (generating xxx key, generating RSA
> key).
> 
>     The keyboard wasn't even recognized by the BIOS.  I finally disconnected
> every USB device, all the ubs, and then the keyboard worked.
> 
>     But when I left it last night, it wouldn't even bring up the grub
> screen.  All the BIOS screens show the usual disk drives.
> 
> The system was working perfectly fine before all hell broke loose.  The
> keyboard was recognized during grub the first time, but after that only if
> all other USB devices were disconnected.  The disk drives acted funny
> during the boot, first with the unknown root- device error, then with the
> funky ATA errors, and finally with not even bringing up grub.
> 
> I will try some more desperate tricks today, like reconnecting the USB pile
> to see if it at least boots the disks again - is my choice between disks
> and keyboard?  I will find out.  My best guess right now is that booting
> 3.7.0 is what clobbered things; whether I added a option which loaded bad
> firmware, or 3.7.0 is broken, I have no idea.  It could well be something
> unrelated to 3.7.0.  My goal for today is to try to get keyboard and disk
> working, then boot with 3.6.8.

how about a more stable kernel - like 3.4.X?

and yes, a confused bios can do a lot of strange things. One thing you might 
try: disconnect your box from the main for several minutes, reset bios...

had to do that dance A LOT with a costly POS asus board...

-- 
#163933

Re: [gentoo-user] ~amd64 compatibility with modern cpus

[felix]

On Fri, Dec 14, 2012 at 06:22:10PM +0100, Volker Armin Hemmann wrote:

> how about a more stable kernel - like 3.4.X?

It was running 3.6.8 fine, and ~ kernels for ages before that.

The paranoid in me thinks it was 3.7.0, but I really don't know.

> and yes, a confused bios can do a lot of strange things. One thing you might 
> try: disconnect your box from the main for several minutes, reset bios...
> 
> had to do that dance A LOT with a costly POS asus board...

I unplugged it last night, tried again half an hour later, no joy, so I unplugged it again and have been eating breakfast, got osme errands to run, and then I will try again.

What's so frustrating is that the box was working fine, including the keyboard, until that first boot into 3.7.0, where it couldn't find the root drive, and then the keyboard stopped working, even with the BIOS, almost as if 3.7.0 did something nasty and clobbered everything it could get its hands on.

Well, I'll try again in a bit.

-- 
Felix Finch, a la mode

Re: [gentoo-user] ~amd64 compatibility with modern cpus

[Bruce Hill]

On Fri, Dec 14, 2012 at 11:18:21AM -0500, felix@crowfix.com wrote:
> 
> I will try some more desperate tricks today, like reconnecting the USB pile to see if it at least boots the disks again - is my choice between disks and keyboard?  I will find out.  My best guess right now is that booting 3.7.0 is what clobbered things; whether I added a option which loaded bad firmware, or 3.7.0 is broken, I have no idea.  It could well be something unrelated to 3.7.0.  My goal for today is to try to get keyboard and disk working, then boot with 3.6.8.

Whatever you think of logic, it is entirely illogical that a kernel could kill
your BIOS, or any hardware ... at least, just booting into it.

The southbridge is a good thing to look at, esp for a burned spot/pit.

My suggestion is http://www.sysresccd.org/SystemRescueCd_Homepage

Our Gentoo images have been broken lately, and are short on tools always.
-- 
Happy Penguin Computers               >')
126 Fenco Drive                       ( \
Tupelo, MS 38801                       ^^
support@happypenguincomputers.com
662-269-2706 662-205-6424
http://happypenguincomputers.com/

Don't top-post: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top_post#Top-posting

Re: [gentoo-user] ~amd64 compatibility with modern cpus

[felix]

On Fri, Dec 14, 2012 at 12:16:46PM -0600, Bruce Hill wrote:
> On Fri, Dec 14, 2012 at 11:18:21AM -0500, felix@crowfix.com wrote:
> > 
> > I will try some more desperate tricks today, like reconnecting the USB pile to see if it at least boots the disks again - is my choice between disks and keyboard?  I will find out.  My best guess right now is that booting 3.7.0 is what clobbered things; whether I added a option which loaded bad firmware, or 3.7.0 is broken, I have no idea.  It could well be something unrelated to 3.7.0.  My goal for today is to try to get keyboard and disk working, then boot with 3.6.8.
> 
> Whatever you think of logic, it is entirely illogical that a kernel could kill
> your BIOS, or any hardware ... at least, just booting into it.
> 
> The southbridge is a good thing to look at, esp for a burned spot/pit.
> 
> My suggestion is http://www.sysresccd.org/SystemRescueCd_Homepage

That's what I've been using.

But the hardware failure is illogical too; why would USB and SATA fail at the same time?  Or why would southbridge fail when it had been running perfectly fine?

I don't really think it was 3.7.0, but who knows, did I answer some config question incorrectly and tell it to load some firmware?  Without access to the disk, I can't tell.  I don't remember any question about loading BIOS firmware, and can't see why the kernel would even care about that.

The whole mess makes no sense.

-- 
Felix Finch, a la mode

Re: [gentoo-user] ~amd64 compatibility with modern cpus

[Bruce Hill]

On Fri, Dec 14, 2012 at 01:24:10PM -0500, felix@crowfix.com wrote:
> 
> That's what I've been using.
> 
> But the hardware failure is illogical too; why would USB and SATA fail at the same time?  Or why would southbridge fail when it had been running perfectly fine?
> 
> I don't really think it was 3.7.0, but who knows, did I answer some config question incorrectly and tell it to load some firmware?  Without access to the disk, I can't tell.  I don't remember any question about loading BIOS firmware, and can't see why the kernel would even care about that.
> 
> The whole mess makes no sense.

Boot with SystemRescueCd and you can't get to a prompt?

If you do, do you have internet access once you're there?

If neither, take a photo and post a link to a *clear* snapshot.

Yes, your southbridge chipset could just happened to have failed at the same
time; or it failed on the reboot; or USB and SATA are both on the southbridge
that failed so you lost both, basically.
-- 
Happy Penguin Computers               >')
126 Fenco Drive                       ( \
Tupelo, MS 38801                       ^^
support@happypenguincomputers.com
662-269-2706 662-205-6424
http://happypenguincomputers.com/

Don't top-post: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top_post#Top-posting

Re: [gentoo-user] ~amd64 compatibility with modern cpus

[Volker Armin Hemmann]

Am Freitag, 14. Dezember 2012, 12:16:46 schrieb Bruce Hill:
> Whatever you think of logic, it is entirely illogical that a kernel could
> kill your BIOS, or any hardware ... at least, just booting into it.

emm, not, it isn't.

-- 
#163933

Re: [gentoo-user] ~amd64 compatibility with modern cpus

[felix]

On Fri, Dec 14, 2012 at 12:34:49PM -0600, Bruce Hill wrote:

> Boot with SystemRescueCd and you can't get to a prompt?

Currently can't even boot -- it hangs wit a blank screen at the point grub or the rescue DVD would take over.

> Yes, your southbridge chipset could just happened to have failed at the same
> time; or it failed on the reboot; or USB and SATA are both on the southbridge
> that failed so you lost both, basically.

Then my natural naive question is, can this be readily replaced, or is it soldered in and/or obsolete?  It is about 8 years old.

-- 
Felix Finch, a la mode

Re: [gentoo-user] ~amd64 compatibility with modern cpus

[Michael Mol]

On Fri, Dec 14, 2012 at 1:43 PM,  <felix@crowfix.com> wrote:
> On Fri, Dec 14, 2012 at 12:34:49PM -0600, Bruce Hill wrote:
>
>> Boot with SystemRescueCd and you can't get to a prompt?
>
> Currently can't even boot -- it hangs wit a blank screen at the point grub or the rescue DVD would take over.
>
>> Yes, your southbridge chipset could just happened to have failed at the same
>> time; or it failed on the reboot; or USB and SATA are both on the southbridge
>> that failed so you lost both, basically.
>
> Then my natural naive question is, can this be readily replaced, or is it soldered in and/or obsolete?  It is about 8 years old.

Almost certainly no. Not unless you take the part numbers in question
and hit ebay.

--
:wq

Re: [gentoo-user] ~amd64 compatibility with modern cpus

[Bruce Hill]

On Fri, Dec 14, 2012 at 01:43:01PM -0500, felix@crowfix.com wrote:
> On Fri, Dec 14, 2012 at 12:34:49PM -0600, Bruce Hill wrote:
> 
> > Boot with SystemRescueCd and you can't get to a prompt?
> 
> Currently can't even boot -- it hangs wit a blank screen at the point grub or the rescue DVD would take over.
> 
> > Yes, your southbridge chipset could just happened to have failed at the same
> > time; or it failed on the reboot; or USB and SATA are both on the southbridge
> > that failed so you lost both, basically.
> 
> Then my natural naive question is, can this be readily replaced, or is it soldered in and/or obsolete?  It is about 8 years old.

An 8-year old consumer class mobo begs replacing. I think the way to replace
the southbridge chip (if that's it) is called floating point solder, or some
such. Hardware fails, and just a new kernel for your present drive will get
you up and running on a new board.
-- 
Happy Penguin Computers               >')
126 Fenco Drive                       ( \
Tupelo, MS 38801                       ^^
support@happypenguincomputers.com
662-269-2706 662-205-6424
http://happypenguincomputers.com/

Don't top-post: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top_post#Top-posting

Re: [gentoo-user] ~amd64 compatibility with modern cpus -- REBOOT OK THIS A.M.

[felix]

I finally ran out of excuses to not reboot after a night powered off, and it did.

It's all running normally now, but I think it's time for me to take the hint, grab a clue, and start researching a replacement.

-- 
Felix Finch, a la mode

Re: [gentoo-user] ~amd64 compatibility with modern cpus -- REBOOT OK THIS A.M.

[Michael Mol]

On Fri, Dec 14, 2012 at 2:51 PM,  <felix@crowfix.com> wrote:
> I finally ran out of excuses to not reboot after a night powered off, and it did.
>
> It's all running normally now, but I think it's time for me to take the hint, grab a clue, and start researching a replacement.

I think you'll find the power consumption of modern systems absolutely
delightful compared to 8yo systems. I was amazed to see that
server-grade xeon CPUs can be had for ~250USD, with a 77W TDP. 5-6
years ago, my Phenom 9650 was a 120TDP part for almost that much when
not on sale. (Yes, I know Intel and AMD don't calculate their thermal
data quite the same way, but it seems comperable enough.)

--
:wq

Re: [gentoo-user] ~amd64 compatibility with modern cpus -- REBOOT OK THIS A.M.

[Dale]

Michael Mol wrote:
> On Fri, Dec 14, 2012 at 2:51 PM,  <felix@crowfix.com> wrote:
>> I finally ran out of excuses to not reboot after a night powered off, and it did.
>>
>> It's all running normally now, but I think it's time for me to take the hint, grab a clue, and start researching a replacement.
> I think you'll find the power consumption of modern systems absolutely
> delightful compared to 8yo systems. I was amazed to see that
> server-grade xeon CPUs can be had for ~250USD, with a 77W TDP. 5-6
> years ago, my Phenom 9650 was a 120TDP part for almost that much when
> not on sale. (Yes, I know Intel and AMD don't calculate their thermal
> data quite the same way, but it seems comperable enough.)
>
> --
> :wq
>
>


I agree.  My old rig, AMD 2500+ CPU with about 2Gbs of ram, a couple
hard drives and a FX-5200 video card pulled about 400 watts or so, not
counting the monitor.  My new rig, AMD 4 core 3.2Ghz CPU, 16Gbs of ram,
4 hard drives and a GT-220 1Gb video card and it pulls less than 150
watts and just barely over 200 watts when compiling something and using
the drives a lot while doing it.  That includes a LCD monitor too.  My
old rig had a CRT monitor.  Power hog big time which is why I didn't add
it to the power being pulled. 

I did some math, my new rig is almost 8 times faster/powerful than my
old rig but pulls much less than half the power even when fully loaded. 
I might add, I think the old rig was idle when I measured that. 

I bet you could find some really old and cheap mobos, say a year or two
old but still new out of the box, and build a cheap system and have a
lot more powerful system that pulls less power from the wall.  I saw a
Gigabyte mobo the other day on newegg for like $40.00.  I'm sure the
model is a year or two old but still, its better than a 8 year old. 
Also, memory is cheap for those too.  Most likely the CPU would be too. 

Sure is a weird problem tho.  Sounds like something I would run into
myself.  ;-) 

Dale

:-)  :-) 

-- 
I am only responsible for what I said ... Not for what you understood or how you interpreted my words!

Re: [gentoo-user] ~amd64 compatibility with modern cpus -- REBOOT OK THIS A.M.

[felix]

On Fri, Dec 14, 2012 at 03:19:53PM -0600, Dale wrote:

> I did some math, my new rig is almost 8 times faster/powerful than my
> old rig but pulls much less than half the power even when fully loaded. 
> I might add, I think the old rig was idle when I measured that. 

My next box will be a commodity box.  This one is a big tower because
I wanted compute power for pictures I was generating, lots of them,
and I wanted lots of storage room.  Now with 4TB drives so cheap and
USB 3 for speed, the storage can all be done by external drives, and I
don't need the compute power any more.  I do like building computers,
in a way, but I don't like the idea of being rushed into building a
replacement, and I don't need any custom features.

A friend suggested a big lightning storm a month ago might have
temporarily scrambled something.  It tripped breakers in the house and
blew out a battery in the standby generator shed, but I've rebooted
twice since that storm without any problems.  I guess it will remain a
mystery.

-- 
            ... _._. ._ ._. . _._. ._. ___ .__ ._. . .__. ._ .. ._.
     Felix Finch: scarecrow repairman & rocket surgeon / felix@crowfix.com
  GPG = E987 4493 C860 246C 3B1E  6477 7838 76E9 182E 8151 ITAR license #4933
I've found a solution to Fermat's Last Theorem but I see I've run out of room o

[gentoo-user] Re: ~amd64 compatibility with modern cpus

[Grant Edwards]

On 2012-12-14, felix@crowfix.com <felix@crowfix.com> wrote:
> On Fri, Dec 14, 2012 at 12:34:49PM -0600, Bruce Hill wrote:
>
>> Boot with SystemRescueCd and you can't get to a prompt?
>
> Currently can't even boot -- it hangs wit a blank screen at the point
> grub or the rescue DVD would take over.
>
>> Yes, your southbridge chipset could just happened to have failed at
>> the same time; or it failed on the reboot; or USB and SATA are both
>> on the southbridge that failed so you lost both, basically.
>
> Then my natural naive question is, can this be readily replaced, or
> is it soldered in and/or obsolete?  It is about 8 years old.

1) You probably can't get a replacement part.  Parts like that have a
   production lifetime of about 6 months.  You _might_ be able to find
   one on the secondary market -- if you're prepared to buy them by
   the tray-full.  If you find them, they'll either be dirt cheap or
   ridiculously expensive.

2) If you had a replacement part, it's probably a BGA part, and you
   have to have special equipment (and/or a _lot_ of luck with a
   heat-gun) to get the old part off and the new part on without
   destroying the board or surrounding parts.  Your best bet would be
   to take it to a board house that does prototype builds and have
   them replace it.  But, unless you're a regular customer, they're
   going to charge you so much for the job that you could probably buy
   a half-dozen replacement motherboards along with CPUs and RAM to go
   with them [if there's no hope of real business, they'll probably
   just say 'no' unless they're bored and feel like doing you a
   favor].

The only practical thing to do is replace the motherboard.  You might
be able to find an old one on eBay that will accept the same CPU and
RAM, but 8 years is a _long_ time...

-- 
Grant

Re: [gentoo-user] ~amd64 compatibility with modern cpus -- REBOOT OK THIS A.M.

[Robert Walker]

On 14/12/12 22:03, felix@crowfix.com wrote:
> A friend suggested a big lightning storm a month ago might have 
> temporarily scrambled something. It tripped breakers in the house and 
> blew out a battery in the standby generator shed, but I've rebooted 
> twice since that storm without any problems. I guess it will remain a 
> mystery. 

OT...

@Felix,
I amused to read this thread. I've an old dual-Opteron box that I'm 
still using. It was my first "watercooling" experiment. Apart from the 
complete lack of power management support (the system sucks down a 
continuous 300+Watts) and no Vt-d hardware virtualisation support it's 
quite a pleasant rig to play about with :-)

One thing I swear by is my big-ass APC 3000 UPS. I spent as more on my 
UPS than my current laptop (and it wasn't a cheap laptop!!) Gradually 
switching over to Season-X series PSU's as well. Clean power and good 
cooling is a mantra I swear by... I rarely ever have an "act of god" 
hardware failure (touch ground)... :-)

Bob

Re: [gentoo-user] ~amd64 compatibility with modern cpus -- REBOOT OK THIS A.M.

[felix]

On Mon, Dec 17, 2012 at 10:10:30PM +0000, Robert Walker wrote:

> I amused to read this thread. I've an old dual-Opteron box that I'm 
> still using. It was my first "watercooling" experiment. Apart from the 
> complete lack of power management support (the system sucks down a 
> continuous 300+Watts) and no Vt-d hardware virtualisation support it's 
> quite a pleasant rig to play about with :-)

Mine is also my first water cooled rig, but I'm not sure I'd do it
again.  It's certainly quieter, but it has given me several surprises
in sudden warm weather, changing the fluid every couple of years is a
major pain, and retubing it is a several day headache by the time I
add in cabling problems.  Having to blow out the dust perdiocially is
probably less hassle since there aren't fans to blow the dust around
so much.

-- 
            ... _._. ._ ._. . _._. ._. ___ .__ ._. . .__. ._ .. ._.
     Felix Finch: scarecrow repairman & rocket surgeon / felix@crowfix.com
  GPG = E987 4493 C860 246C 3B1E  6477 7838 76E9 182E 8151 ITAR license #4933
I've found a solution to Fermat's Last Theorem but I see I've run out of room o