EDAC error

[Bill Davidsen]

Roger Heflin wrote:
> Ric Moore wrote:
>> On Sat, 2008-03-22 at 10:03 -0500, Roger Heflin wrote:
>>> Ric Moore wrote:
>>>> On Thu, 2008-03-20 at 21:58 -0500, Roger Heflin wrote:
>>>>> Brent Snow, Mr. wrote:
>>>>>> Hi All,
>>>>>>
>>>>>>  
>>>>>>
>>>>>>             I am having a problem with a new Dell PowerEdge 1900 
>>>>>> Server
>>>>>> running Fedora 8.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>  
>>>>>>
>>>>>>             The System setup is as follows:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>  
>>>>>>
>>>>>>             2 - Xeon  E5310 (Quad-Core 1.6 GHz) processors
>>>>>>
>>>>>>  
>>>>>>
>>>>>>             16 GB of RAM, I SATA 80 GB HDD.
>>>> Holy Smokes! 2 quad cores? That's 8 cores total(?) and 16 GIGS of Ram??
>>>> My Gawd, not only am I jealous as all hell, I'm wondering what kinda
>>>> kernel are you running?? Any sort of stock kernel would roll over and
>>>> join the Choir Eternal. 
>>> Actually fairly normal kernels work just fine on the large boxes, I 
>>> have ran stock FC6 kernels up to 8 cpus/16 cores and up to 64GB of 
>>> ram with no issues.
>>>
>>>> Wouldn't you be running some sort of mini clustering setup?? Setup
>>>> right, it should really blow serious coal. Your problem might lie in
>>>> that direction. You might have training wheels on a Dodge Hemi. With a
>>>> machine like that, I could almost do without eating! <huge drooling 
>>>> grins> Ric
>>>>  
>>> Clustering setups are only needed when you have more than 1 machine, 
>>> having lots of cpus on a single machine is much easier than 
>>> clustering as you don't need have to worry about the networking, and 
>>> the memory can be shared easily between the cpus.
>>
>> Huh, I wonder then why he's having problems. In the -OLD- days he'd be
>> rolling a new kernel. Is the stock kernel multi-cpu aware or does he
>> need a more specialized kernel, or is it the kernel at all?? That's
>> where I would be looking, fer sure. God, I want one like he's got.
>> <scratching strong itch> I always stay a couple of years behind. :) Ric
>>
> 
> Hyperthreading has been around too long, and dual core has also been 
> around too long, so pretty much everyone ships with SMP on *NOW*.   And 
> you are correct, several years ago, SMP was default off on a number of 
> distributions, so you almost always had to compile your own.
> 
What you say is mostly correct, although some distributions did ship an 
SMP kernel which you could boot. The one factor you didn't mention is 
that some changes made in early 2.6 reduced the performance penalty for 
running an SMP kernel on a uni. I don't remember exactly which, but 
there's little justification for bothering now, since if you're out 
after the last drop of performance you probably run SMP anyway.

The one exception might be someone on old grotty hardware, true uni and 
slow to boot, where a percent or two would seem to matter.

-- 
Bill Davidsen <davidsen at tmr.com>
   "We have more to fear from the bungling of the incompetent than from
the machinations of the wicked."  - from Slashdot