[wplug-bsd] Signal 11

[Bill Moran]

Ghataora, Hardeep wrote:
> I guess that's a good logical next step, I think I have memtest86 on a
> SuSE install CD somewhere. I know signal 11's with gcc on occasion
> relate to memory, not sure what was going on here with every other OS I
> tried working fine (I have mandrake on it now).

I have seen systems that would run everything except FreeBSD be a result
of both flakey ram, and unsupported hardware (OK, I didn't test
_everything_ else) which is why I brought those two ideas up.

I've seen some bizaar result when bad ram is involved.  Any time I've
seen bad RAM, it's just one little part of the chip, and it often is
only bad like 10% of the time.  The former can often cause the symptoms
you describe (perhaps the FreeBSD install program just happens to try
using those bad bits for something important, and no other program does.)
The latter is usually worse, as you need to let a program like memtest86
run for hours before you actually catch the error in the act.

Good luck.

> 
> Thanks Bill,
> 
> I'll giev that a go tonight.
> 
> H
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Bill Moran [mailto:wmoran at potentialtech.com] 
> Sent: Monday, May 03, 2004 10:58 AM
> To: Ghataora, Hardeep
> Cc: wplug-bsd at wplug.org
> Subject: Re: [wplug-bsd] Signal 11
> 
> 
> Ghataora, Hardeep wrote:
> 
>>Hey,
>> 
>>Anyone know why I'm getting a signal 11 when installing FreeBSD 4.9 or
>>5.1, right after the hard disk formatting is complete I get a 'I
> 
> caught 
> 
>>a signal 11'. The only OS that does this is FreeBSD, other BSDs, and
> 
> all 
> 
>>LINUX work fine. The spec is as follows.
>> 
>>HP Brio BA410 (yeah, i know, well, it was free)
>>GeForce MX AGP
>>Intel Pro 10/100+ NIC
>>512MB RAM (in 2x256MB matched memory modules, tried mismatching them 
>>too) Creative/Ensoniq AudioPCI card 40 GB Western Digital IDE hard 
>>disk (cable select, primary channel) Floppy drive
>>2 CD-ROMs (IDE) (both on cable select, secondary channel)
>> 
>>I've googled with little luck, any thoughts or pointers would be 
>>great.
> 
> 
> Have you tested the memory extensively?  sig 11s are frequently caused
> by flakey RAM.  I use memtest86 when in doubt: http://www.memtest86.com
> 
> I'm trying to remember what happens immediately after the format, but I
> believe the next step is to transfer enough files to the HDD to create a
> bootable environment.  If you hit alt-F3 when the sig 11 occurs, is
> there anything more helpful on that screen?  Can you tell what the last
> thing it was trying to do was?
> 
> It might just be incompatible hardware.  But I suspect (from your
> description) that something in the install process of FreeBSD is
> tickling the problem.
> 


-- 
Bill Moran
Potential Technologies
http://www.potentialtech.com