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GCC Instability Problems With SuSE/AMD K6?

Posted by Cliff on from the what's-the-failure-point dept.

cmickelson asks: "I've been running SuSE Linux 6.x on my laptop for over a year now and everytime I would compile something I would have to run make several times because of errors during compiling. Now my laptop is very unstable, Windows is unusable because of constant crashes, but Linux generally runs well except for Netscape core dumps, and the compiling problems. Anyway I just assumed the errors were due the system's instablility. However, I recently assembled a new desktop computer and installed SuSE 6.4 on that and the same thing happened when I tried to compile Samba. I had to run make five times before the whole source tree was completed. Is this typical? I find it hard to believe that gcc/gpp could be that unstable, but why else would this happen with two different systems? Is this due to the AMD K6-2 processors (which both laptops have), or is SuSE the problem?"

8 of 31 comments (clear)

  1. Similar problems by cswan · · Score: 2

    I don't know about your laptop, but I had similar problems with my K6-2 300 (running @333) desktop machine. It's on a FIC board, and running with 128Meg of SIMMS. For the longest time I could never get a make to finish.

    Your problems, though, seem indicative of an overheating CPU--don't you think? You say you run a make and it fails--you try again, it might get a little farther (it's skipping the parts it finished previously), and then dies, right?

    That was my problem, too. My CPU had the original heatsink and FAN from AMD mounted on it. Unfortunately, the heatsink is mounted onto the CPU with some really crappy epoxy that will often just lose its contact with the CPU--so I'll have to go over to the machine and push down on the heatsink to make contact with the chip again. I know, I know...I should just replace the damned epoxy before I push too hard and crack the motherboard :)

    Just an idear, though--dunno if you've got the same stuff.

  2. Lemme get this straight . . . by alhaz · · Score: 2

    "My hardware is flaky, why do I have trouble compiling?!"

    Because your hardware is flaky. Some cheapie motherboards don't do well. Or maybe your processor is faulty. I've had no trouble with a K6-450 and a K6-500 on linux here. Including compiling all sorts of things.

    --
    This is just like television, only you can see much further.
  3. Re:memory problems by Mr.+Slippery · · Score: 2

    Agreed on the overheated processor. My K6 started flaking out during kernel compiles and Quakeworld games. I found that the CPU fan had died, replaced it and had more more problems.

    --
    Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
    You cannot wash away blood with blood
  4. It happens to me too! by WestonP · · Score: 2
    My home server runs a K6-2 @ 266MHz, and I used to have *lots* of problems running Linux on it. make would sometimes spontaneously die (compiling a kernel would always do it), and it would even crash (several nasty kernel-oops'es) once in a while. "su" and other common programs would sometimes segfault, which usually happened right before it would simply just stop taking network connections. I could ping it, but telnet and ssh were dead, and if I were to try to login locally, it would take my username and password, but then just show me the login screen again! And it apparently didn't log anything during that time either.

    My theory was that it was either overheating or that it was memory related. Although the CPU fan was wearing out (it was gradually becoming very noisy), it still kept it really cool, so I dismissed overheating as a possible cause. At the time, the memory was 32MB of 168-pin and 16MB of 72-pin, and that 48MB was horribly inadequate, as it was using it's swap partition heavily.

    It now has 96MB (all 168-pin), a new CPU fan, new hard drive, and a clean install of Mandrake 7.1, and it's working better than ever before. It just made 100 hours of uptime today, which would have been nearly impossible before. I would suspect that 16MB of 72-pin memory, but it seems to be working fine in a Windows machine, so maybe it was my motherboard or something to do with the swapping???

    1. Re:It happens to me too! by shepd · · Score: 3

      Your problem was probably the mixture of SIMMS (72-pin) and DIMMS (168-pin).

      SIMMS run at 5 volts. DIMMS usually run at 3.3 volts (unless you spent a lot of dough on them, they will be running at 3.3 volts). Running a DIMM at 5 volts will either cause it to burn out, or will cause it to be unstable.

      Running a SIMM at 3.3 volts will certainly cause it to be unstable, but will not cause it to burn out.

      Since I have never, ever, heard of even the most expensive motherboard supporting both SIMMS and DIMMS at the same time (unless they are all 5 volts... which is why some manuals say they can use both at the same time), I would say your board didn't support it.

      So, you were either ruining your DIMMS, or not supplying enough voltage to the SIMMS. Since you say the DIMMS and SIMMS by themselves appear to still work, I'll assume the latter. You're pretty lucky actually... :-)

      [if I'm wrong, please correct me...]

      --
      If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
  5. It happens to me all the time, too by electricmonk · · Score: 2

    I have been running FreeBSD (supposedly a VERY stable OS) for a few months on my AMD K6-2, and I have noticed the same problems. In fact, I can't even recompile the kernel to fix the problem that is specific to my machine, even though there is a fix for it in the FreeBSD kernel source. It is just plain depressing. make has become the most frustrating aspect of *nix for me, simply because my hardware prevents it from working properly.

    BTW, it has to do with some kind of memory hole. I always get signal 11s when trying to make anything.

    I'm gonna try my luck with OpenBSD now, since there's not really anything on the machine I care about...

    --
    Friends don't let friends use multiple inheritance.
  6. oops, forgot some information by electricmonk · · Score: 2

    [more info...]

    Also, I can't even install Windows 98, because it will crash during the installation process. My proc is an AMD K6-2 400Mhz.

    Try looking through /usr/src/sys/i386/conf/LINT to find the processor-specific option for fixing this particular problem, if you can get a look at a FreeBSD machine.

    --
    Friends don't let friends use multiple inheritance.
  7. Maybe hardware by levendis · · Score: 3

    It is possible that its related to hardware. Check out http://www.bitwizard.nl/sig11/ - grep the page for "K6". If you get a signal 11 (no, not the Signal 11), its almost always CPU or memory related. I have an AMD-K6 350 that exhibits the same symptoms, unless I disable the CPU cache in the BIOS.
    ----

    --
    ---- I made the Kessel Run in under 11 parsecs.