saus@media-lab.media.mit.edu (Mark Sausville) (09/29/89)
Just the facts, lady, just the facts. Hardware: VAX 6320 with network, kdb50, ci (hsc), and 4 dmb32 (16xrs232) We brought this machine up back in May and started really using it just before July 1. The OS at that time was straight Ultrix 3.0 (with a bit of local stuff, but no hacked drivers, or special i/o). The system hung (no response of any kind to anything (except ctrl-p)), on an average, about once a day until about July 20, when we installed a fix provided to us by Digital, which patched some kernel code related to the dmb32s. They claimed that the problem had to do with modems (which we have) on the dmb32s. This fix was supposed to be for all XMI/BI machines. This problem seemed to be entirely repaired by the new driver code. To make a long story short, the problem came back after about 6 weeks, and we have been seeing a hang every 24 hours or so. After going through the story again with DEC, they recommended that we upgrade to 3.1, to ensure that we had good code. We upgraded last night and (you guessed it) we had our first hang today. It was followed by a panic (progress?). We're proceding with analysis of the problem, but turnaround on crash dumps with DEC is less than instant. The DEC hardare people are going to get involved again, but they're a lot better on VMS. I'm not asking for a diagnosis here. I would like to hear from people who have had similar problems. If you had the dmb/modem problem and it was fixed for good by the patch or by 3.1, I'd like to know about that too. Mark. Mark Sausville MIT Media Laboratory Computer Systems Administrator Room E15-354 617-253-0325 20 Ames Street saus@media-lab.media.mit.edu Cambridge, MA 02139
grr@cbmvax.UUCP (George Robbins) (09/30/89)
In article <SAUS.89Sep28234906@media-lab.media.mit.edu> saus@media-lab.media.mit.edu (Mark Sausville) writes: > > Hardware: VAX 6320 with network, kdb50, ci (hsc), and 4 dmb32 (16xrs232) > > The system hung... > > This problem seemed to be entirely repaired by the new driver code. > To make a long story short, the problem came back after about 6 weeks, > and we have been seeing a hang every 24 hours or so. After going > through the story again with DEC, they recommended that we upgrade to > 3.1, to ensure that we had good code. > > We upgraded last night and (you guessed it) we had our first hang today. > It was followed by a panic (progress?). Please, when relating tales of woe, include enough "hard" information so that others may correlate it with their own experience. Which panic? If the system hangs, is it no echo, echo but no action, etc. For a hang it may help to know what module the PC was in etc. Not to get carried away, but just enough to "label" the problem. > We're proceding with analysis of the problem, but turnaround on crash > dumps with DEC is less than instant. The DEC hardare people are going > to get involved again, but they're a lot better on VMS. I'm not > asking for a diagnosis here. I would like to hear from people who > have had similar problems. Sigh... I'm still working on/with DEC on the LAT cooked/cbreak/raw vs. server passthru problem. It took months to get them to *do* anything, the first try didn't cut it and now they want to look at my machine that worked just fine with 1.x and 2.x up till the intromission of Ultrix 3.1. Sometime I think chapter 1 on the Ultrix installation manual should be devoted to describing how to effectively work the software "support" mechanism. Getting from the "fixes to known problems" to the "define and correct new bugs" is much bigger step then you'd want to imagine. -- George Robbins - now working for, uucp: {uunet|pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax!grr but no way officially representing arpa: cbmvax!grr@uunet.uu.net Commodore, Engineering Department fone: 215-431-9255 (only by moonlite)