Chris Miller wrote: > > Hello, > I've got an EPIA-M series motherboard in a system that has locked > up twice under random conditions. Nothing is logged to the console or > logs, the system just hangs. > > The system is installed with CentOS 4.4 and running the > 2.6.9-42.0.8.EL i686 kernel. I am aware that older C3 processors had > the CMOV problem, but that is resolved in the later boards (procinfo > below). I've seen a few posts about similar problems, but it's not > clear whether this is a bad board, or if there's an issue with the > kernel. > > cpuspeed was running, I've since disabled and stopped the service as > it's been rumored to cause problems. This was mentioned in this bug > report that is still open : > > http://bugs.centos.org/view.php?id=1270 > > Can anyone confirm that there are no known problems with the VIA C3 > Nehemiah Model 9 and CentOS, or if some (kernel) tweaks are required > to make these systems stable? > Try running a large rsync to system with "hdparm -d" DMA turned on. I've read a thread on Via's forums that some of their southbridge chipsets do not handle DMA contention and freak out. Turn DMA off using hdparm and try the rsync again. I was able to get around this by turning dma off for the hard drive. http://forums.viaarena.com/messageview.aspx?catid=28&threadid=60131&STARTPAGE=3&FTVAR_FORUMVIEWTMP=Linear I've had a sales engineer that works a lot with Via systems say something to me of this topic: > Are you using any additional peripherals (wireless LAN, USB devices, > etc...)? I've found that the DMA issues are usually triggered when a > DMA-enabled PCI device enters the picture, however, I have seen reports > of these problems arising in situations where considerable network data > transfer occurs simultaneously with heavy disk activity. Jed