by A newly set up 2.2.8 FreeBSD system used for moderate
amounts of email, file service etc, is regularly getting
corrupted at a frequency of about one every 3-5 days.
The system is a Pentium Pro 200Mhz with 64Mb ECC RAM
and a Tyan 1668? mobo, with an Adaptec 2940UW and a pair of
Seagate 2Gb UW SCSI disks.
The symptoms are a crash with the root, /var and /usr
filesystems scrambled (usually root and /var are totally
scrambled, fsck reports Partially allocated inode 3, 4, 5
etc, or Bad magic number in superblock), while /usr is lightly
damaged, and /tmp and /home are generally fine.
I have run this exact same configuration of 2.2.8 on
many other systems doing essentially the same tasks, and it
has been rock solid, using IDE or other SCSI controllers.
However I have not yet run this setup with an Adaptec
AHA2940UW controller. Are there any outstanding issues wrt
the 2940 driver in 2.2.8 ?
With a problem like this, I suspect an issue in the
SCSI subsystem, either hardware, in the drives, controller,
or in the SCSI driver. However, I have replaced the controller
and the drives and the problem still exists, which is why I
question the FreeBSD 2940 driver. Would it help to throttle
the SCSI bus from 20Mhz down to 10Mhz ? Other 2940 options
I should use ?
It seems less likely that it is a CPU, mobo or memory
problem. I suppose it could be a PCI problem... but the
symptoms, particularly the nature of the disk corruption, is
very consistent, over about ten crashes.
Thanks for any help...
Cheers,
Dan Ts'o, 212-327-7671, FAX: 212-327-7671
The Rockefeller University, 1230 York Ave. Box 138
New York, NY 10021