Topic: SME Server with 2 CPUs…???

[byte]

The BIOS may detect the 2 cpu's correctly but because they are P3 cpu's it may be the the 2.6 kernel doesn't support the "older" P3 cpu's, the way to test this out is download CentOS 4.6 and see if CentOS 4.6 recognises the cpu's.

My guess is it won't because we use the same kernels, so it's as Charlie says "hardware issue"

[mercyh]

Out of curiosity and ignorance,

If the kernel detects one P3 processor, would that not indicate that the processor is supported? Why would it not detect the second of the same thing?

I can see that the second socket on the Motherboard may not be detected correctly.

I am just curious and have learned long ago that when Charlie and Gavin post they know what they are talking about 

[byte]

If the kernel detects one P3 processor, would that not indicate that the processor is supported? Why would it not detect the second of the same thing?

I should have said that although it supports one P3 CPU it may not support Dual CPU's, so even though they are same arch it wouldn't necessarily mean it would  support dual P3...

Are these branded servers i.e HP / Compaq, DELL ?

[CharlieBrady]

Quote from Mgic_bx

CharlieBrady
What about this?

Still may be a hardware or bios issue. But also may be a linux kernel issue. We can't fix any of those.

To put it simply, there's nothing that SME server specifically does to detect CPUs. If the linux smp kernel finds them, it use them, if it doesn't, it doesn't.

[janet]

Charlie, mgic_box

All drivers are bundled with the kernel rpm....

Thanks for the correction, my misunderstanding.

I was under the impression though, that if any major hardware changes occur, that a CD upgrade install should be done. Is that not generally correct ?
 

Still may be a hardware or bios issue. But also may be a linux kernel issue.

Upgrading sme will install a more recent kernel, and that may work better with the dual PIII CPU's/motherboard/BIOS that mgic_box has.

[CharlieBrady]

Thanks for the correction, my misunderstanding.

I was under the impression though, that if any major hardware changes occur, that a CD upgrade install should be done. Is that not generally correct ?

No. A CD upgrade *might* help if hard drives were moved to a new system with a different SCSI adaptor, but that's a very rare case. Nothing should be required for a different motherboard. If the NICs are different, just running through "configure" on the admin console menu is sufficient.

Upgrading sme will install a more recent kernel, and that may work better with the dual PIII CPU's/motherboard/BIOS that mgic_box has.

Very unlikely, IMO.

[janet]

Charlie

Thanks.

.....Adjusting brain for revised information.

[mgic_box]

Charlie

Thanks.

.....Adjusting brain for revised information.

Hello everybody,

Thank you for your concern and your (try to) help.

About the main board, is/belongs to a Compaq Proliant 1850R (PL1850R 6/500 512 128 euro) – as you can see is a rather old machine…

I thought that this could be a simple thing to do, as other Lin*s (RedHat, Suse, Mandrake) we have tools to discover new hardware, like kudzu that detect, install and start using everything  automatically, from HD, CDROMs, to usb devices and so on, and are even run automatically on a reboot.

I thought, that I was missing something, and that I had to hit or ran some command…

But, as it seams complicated, forget! In reality, I only needed this fix for, to use, in the mean time, for 15 days, as, in 15 days I will be moving SME to a HP Ploliant DL360  server, were SME htop shows, not 1, not 2, but 4 CPUs!.

About updates, as you can see, this machine will die this way, because, as you can see I am not going to lose much time with it.
In addition, I can inform you that this is an old problem, and that at the time I Installed the new CPU, I ran all the updates till the end (yum update), the only point is that at that time, I haven’t time to lose/win (apparently it seams that I only lost) with this concern, (only now I hat some time…). If we were talking about a brand new board/machine… might…
And above all, there are some people relating problems with the latest release (V.7.3) of SME server, so before doing an update on a production server, I must do some more serious testes about this issues/problems related here, in this forum, with SME V.7.3.

Anyway, SME is a good system; I use it for www server and for e-mail. I know that I could use it to store/share files, but I don’t use it to store/share files (use other systems).

We need systems like SME! Don’t let win*s rule the world!

Regards.

[ahartwig]

Many PC operating systems rely on the BIOS telling them how many CPUs are present. This information is included in MPTABLES data structure or ACPI data.At least a couple of older (PII and P3 generation) BIOS implementations have an option disable the provision of MPTABLES or ACPI data. Some BIOS implementations also have an option to specify at most ONE CPU in MPTABLES and ACPI data.

I suggest you check your BIOS settings to ensure the BIOS is provide MPTABLES OR ACPI data and that its not limited to only one CPU. Some older BIOS implementations provided incorrect ACPI data so, if you have the option, I suggest using MPTABLES and see if that makes a difference. Then you could try enabling ACPI data and if there are problems with that you could fall back to MPTABLES (or see if you can get a more recent BIOS).

My ASUS CUV4X motherboard which takes up to two P3 CPUs has a "MPS 1.4 Support" setting under the BOOT menu. This should be enabled. I have other dual P2 motherboards which are different.

[jjcuk]

this has been reported before, looks like Its a compaq bios issue
I reported it as Bug 2175

http://bugs.contribs.org/show_bug.cgi?id=2175


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

http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-current/2005-April/049371.html

fixed it for me
regards Jim

[judgej]

When I first saw this post, I wondered whether the server would be a Compaq Proliant, and you have confirmed it is.

Just to save you some time: don't bother looking any further. I have tried the Proliant with two 500MHz CPUs with SME server v3.5, v4, v5.5 and v6. Not one would detect the second CPU, and nothing I did could kick it into action.

I suspect the problem is the BIOS on the Compaqs. The BIOS in these machines tends to adhere to the standards very strictly, which means they never report over 64M RAM (a problem when installing) and they often do not report extra CPUs, as the extensions on other BIOSs would.

So - save some time and give up on this one.

[jjcuk]

not true judgej

please read my previous post this should be fixable

regards
Jim