ok all
Have finally solved this,
after trying sme 6.5, sme 6, centos 4.4 , red hat 7.3 mandrake 10 and debian sarge it slowly dawned on me it had to be a hardware configuration problem.
I assumed as the bios detected both processors on boot Linux should to,
However it seems the server bios needs to be set up to specifically enable linux, I had to do a system erase and re-install with smartstart 5.5 software.
after trawling the net for a week I found this gem hidden away on a free bsd forum
Here is the link and details that aided me for future reference
---------------------------
link
http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-current/2005-April/049371.html---------------------------
On 04/26/05 19:50, Matthew Sullivan wrote:
> Maxime Henrion wrote:
>> Yeah, I've seen DL380 boxes that needed "Linux" as the OS type or the
>> BIOS wouldn't generate an MPTable with both CPUs.
>
> Apologies for any wasted time....
>
> This was the answer....
>
> In detail, this morning I went back into the Compaq BIOS configuration
> tool, and the OS's settable were (amongst others):
>
> OTHER
> UNIX
>
> I had set to 'UNIX'.... I changed to 'OTHER' rebooted and .. still the
> same.
>
> There was no mention of 'LINUX' ... frustrated (and sure I saw "LINUX"
> in the config previously) I did the following...
>
> 1/. Powered Down
> 2/ Undocked all SCSI drives (just popped them out of the connectors)
> 3/ Booted the Config utility
> 4/ Selected 'Erase System'
> 5/ Power cycled (as instructed)
> 6/ Booted back into the 'Smartstart' config utility.
> 7/ Followed the 'Manual Configuration and OS install'
> 8/ Selected "LINUX" (which was now on this menu.
> 9/ Went to the Smart Array Util, and exited immediately, which caused a
> spontaneous reboot.
> 10/ Powered Down
> 11/ Docked all the drives.
> 12/ Powered up, and booted back into the Smart Start util.
> 13/ Noticed the RAID 5 array and config was self configured by the
> controller.
> 14/ Checked all settings in the Configutil - noticed "LINUX" was still
> displayed as the OS type.
> 15/ Checked the Array config (very impressed that it worked out the
> config itself)
> 16/ Exited Util (no save, none necessary).
> 17/ Power cycled.
> 18/ Removed smart start CD.
> 19/ booted FreeBSD and saved the collected data in a similar place:
>
>
http://scorpion.sorbs.net/SMP/after-erase/>
> ...and as you can see, I have 2 CPU's and this time they are detected
> correctly (including the 'odd' CPU type that was reported by the
> previous config)....
>
> For this I hope someone will create a FAQ for old Compaq's, and I'm
> posting this back to the list so that people having similar problems in
> the future can reference it.
I have a single-CPU DL360 and a quad-CPU 6400R. After flashing the BIOS
to the latest version and erasing the system, both are running 5-STABLE
flawlessly with the OS type set to "Windows 2000". Prior to installing
FreeBSD, both were actually running Windows 2000. However, I was unable
to get the 6400R to boot the FreeBSD install CD without panicking until
I erased the system. I had tried almost every OS type without success.
The "Erase System" seemed to be the critical step to get up-and-running.
Jon
---------------------------------------------
Thanks to all for help, I will inform bug tracker of my error
Jim