Re: [Xen-devel] Instability with Xen, interrupt routing frozen, HPET broadcast

[Andreas Kinzler <ml-xen-devel@xxxxxx>]

On 29.09.2010 21:50, Jeremy Fitzhardinge wrote:
> > It is a Supermicro X8SIL-F, Intel Xeon 3450 system.
> The big problem I had initially was instability with the integrated
> ethernet until I disabled PCIe ASPM.  The symptom was that the ethernet
> devices would disappear (ie, their PCI config space would start to read
> all 0xff...)
I know that this is a known problem of Intel 82574L chips (on X8SIL) - 
it is discussed on "Intel Wired Ethernet" 
(http://sourceforge.net/projects/e1000/). That is why I tested different 
NICs (Intel ET Server Adapter (82576 [igb]) and Realtek 8168) and the 
problem remained. So I can say with certainty that the NIC and/or its 
power management is not the problem.
I also spend extensive time changing hardware components. I used a 
different mainboard (ASUS P7F-M), a different power supply, changed CPU, 
changed NICs (see above) - problems remained.
> That's exactly what my main test/devel machine is.  It has been very
> stable for me with xen-unstable.

We have a second Supermicro X8SIL-F, Intel Xeon 3450 system which only 
runs Linux PVM domains and it is totally stable (without my HPET patch). 
So I think as with all timing/race/deadlock/... issues it depends on 
what you do on your system. Let me give you my crash "recipe" [quite 
reliable ;-)]
Have two HVMs (called win1, win2) with Windows 7 x64 installed (do 
install everything twice, never clone, VM config attached). Install 
GPLPV 0.11.0.213, iometer 2006.07.27, prime95 25.11 x64. On both 
systems: start prime95 torture test (in-place large FFT) and using 
Windows task manager set CPU affinity on win1 of process prime95 to use 
only CPU1. On win2 do the same thing but to use only CPU0. Then start 
iometer on both VMs using the following parameters: have a second 
virtual disk in both VMs (so every windows has 2 virtual disks, one for 
Windows and one for iometer), use "# of outstanding I/Os" = 4, access 
spec = "All in one". Wait some minutes. Crash!
Regards Andreas

win1.hvm
Description: Text document

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