Could be, but if this is the case their should be a patch online from Adaptec.  Could also be a motherboard issue, such as excess current draw causing instability.  Hard to say until we find out how the card swap worked and if Adaptec recognizes the problem with their card.

 


From: plug-discuss-bounces@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us [mailto:plug-discuss-bounces@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us] On Behalf Of Shawn Badger
Sent: Monday, July 16, 2007 2:50 PM
To: Main PLUG discussion list
Subject: Re: SCSI Drives / Large Memory Kernel Panic

 

I wonder then if the SCSI card that doesn't work has a fixed IO address that happens to fall within a memory address above 2 gig and you start having problems when ever that space is touched. I am just totally shooting in the dark, but it may be just that.

On 7/16/07, Steven Wagner <digital9ja@gmail.com> wrote:

Shawn Badger wrote:
> I am guessing it may be some bad memory. I know that CentSO can
> support much more than 4 Gig of memory. Get something like the system
> rescue cd and do a memory test to see if it makes it through.
>
> Also, remove the old 2 gig of memory and see if it works in that
> configuration. If it does, then you may even try to mix and match the
> chips. It is possible they sent you the wrong memory.
When we install CentOS to a SATA drive everything works fine and it sees
all 4 GB RAM and there aren't any problems. I think it's the SCSI card.
The card in the broken server is an Adaptec 2940W/2940UW. I found out
tonight that this same client has another server with us that is running
CentOS with 4 GB RAM, but the SCSI card in that system is an Adaptec
2940UW. hmmmm... I asked her if she could afford the downtime (15-20
minutes) for me to borrow that card and swap with the one in the broken
server. I'm still waiting to hear back on that.

At this point I am 98.9% sure it's something to do with the SCSI card.
Still, it's kind of weird that that card and those drives work perfectly
with 2 GB RAM, no? Maybe a firmware issue with the drives? Or the card?
>
>
>
> On 7/15/07, *Steven Wagner* <digital9ja@gmail.com
> <mailto: digital9ja@gmail.com>> wrote:
>
>     Technomage-hawke wrote:
>     > this may be a linux specific problem (I cannot be sure unless
>     the results can
>     > be duplicated with other linux distros).
>     >
>     > perhaps trying openBSD or OpenSolaris would work (fully
>     supported for that
>     > much ram and that hardware).
>     >
>     I've tried FreeBSD (and several other Linux distros) and it didn't
>     even
>     see the drives. I'm pretty sure that the problem is the card, but it's
>     still odd that it works fine with 2 GB RAM. Also, CentOS worked fine
>     with the SATA drive and all 4 GB RAM.
>     >
>     >
>     > TMH
>     >
>     > On Sunday 15 July 2007 21:57, Steven Wagner wrote:
>     >
>     >> I'm trying to upgrade a server from 2 GB of registered ECC RAM
>     to 4 GB.
>     >> The extra RAM was specifically purchased from the manufacturer
>     to be
>     >> identical to the existing modules. After installing the extra
>     RAM the
>     >> server panic'ed so we tried installing some other kernels, even
>     enabling
>     >> huge mem (64 bit) to no avail.
>     >>
>     >> I rebuilt the server with CentOS 4.4 Server CD with all 4 GB of RAM
>     >> installed. It panics when I try to boot with the full 4 GB
>     installed,
>     >> but boots fine when I remove 2 GB.
>     >>
>     >> The panic seems to happen when the SCSI card driver, aic7xxx,
>     tries to
>     >> enable the disc drives. The console error says:
>     >>
>     >> aic7xxx_dump returns 0x2002
>     >> Device offlined
>     >>
>     >> then a slew of SCSI I/O errors, the exec of init failed, then
>     the panic.
>     >> It seems weird that the card and the drives work fine with the
>     2 GB of
>     >> RAM...Anybody have any thoughts?
>     >>
>     >> TIA,
>     >>
>     >> Steve
>     >>
>     >> BTW, I installed CentOS 4.4 on this machine to a SATA drive and
>     it sees
>     >> all 4 GBs and works fine.
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