Date: Tue, 06 Dec 2005 16:22:54 -0500
From: Gene Heskett <gene.heskett@verizon.net>
Subject: Re: ntp problems
In-reply-to: <200512061402.08709.gene.heskett@verizon.net>
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On Tuesday 06 December 2005 14:02, Gene Heskett wrote:
>On Tuesday 06 December 2005 06:44, Jean-Christian de Rivaz wrote:
>>Gene Heskett a ?crit :
>>>>Hmmm. Indeed the nforce2 has had a number of problems, but I'm not
>>>> sure why it would have changed recently. Can you bound at all the
>>>> kernel versions where it worked and where it broke? Additionally,
>>>> do be sure you have the most recent BIOS, I've seen a number of
>>>> nforce2 issues be resolved with a BIOS update.
>>>
>>> I've already put more powerdown cycles (60 some) on my hard drives
>>> fighting with the recent tv card problem, I'd like to get some
>>> uptime in.  All I know for sure is if I build 2.6.15-rc5 with acpi,
>>> ntpd doesn't work.  ntpdate does, but ntpd doesn't.  And both dmesg
>>> and the ntp.log (and -d's passed at launch time do not make it more
>>> verbose, they just keep it from starting) are silent as to the diffs
>>> other than the interrupt number shuffling in dmesg when its on.  But
>>> I suspect it may have started with 2.6.15-rc2, and I didn't build
>>> rc1.  And I *think* it worked as recently as 2.6.14.1 with it turned
>>> on.  I've cleaned house in /usr/src's so I don't have anything
>>> older. Sorry.
>>
>>I have to agree with John Stultz. I am one with a nForce2 chipset
>> where updating to the latest BIOS have totaly solved the excatly same
>> ntpd problem.
>
>Problems: I went and got a newer bios, for a Biostar N7NCD-Pro, put it
>on a floppy and rebooted.  Going into the bios I chose to update it as
>that is part of the existing bios, no awardflash.exe needed according
> to the propaganda.  But the bios can't find it on the floppy.
>
>Or do I still need awardflash.exe on the floppy too?  I'll put it there
>and try again.
>------
>Several reboots later, I still haven't managed to get it updated.
>
>The first problem was that the builtin bios flasher couldn't find the
>file on the floppy, presumably because while vfat shows the correct
> name of ncdp1102bf.exe, a dos boot or compatible dir util can't see it
> as anything but ncdp11~1.exe.  So I put their latest awdflash.exe on
> the disk too.  Same deal except I had it save the old bios as
> oldbios.exe, and it can see that, but not the new file until I renamed
> it to something short enough for an idiot dos, ncdpbf.exe.
>
>So, having arrived as a dos compatible name, I tried again, but now its
>bitching about a file size error and still refuses to do the update
>using their instructions to recover a bad update.  And the builtin bios
>flasher still can't see the shortened name.  I don't see a filesize
>error in the ls -l's below either.
>
>An ls -l on that floppy shows:
>[root@coyote root]# ls -l /mnt/floppy
>total 563
>-rwxr-xr-x  1 root root  47916 Dec  6 13:23 awdflash.exe
>-rwxr-xr-x  1 root root 266240 Dec  6 13:24 ncdpbf.exe
>-rwxr-xr-x  1 root root 262144 Dec  6  2005 oldbios.exe
>
>
>An ls -l on the /dos dir of my hd, grepped for ncdp:
>-rwxr-xr-x  1 root root 266240 Sep 16  2004 ncdp0730bf.exe
>-rwxr-xr-x  1 root root 266240 Dec  6 12:10 ncdp1102bf.exe
>
>The ncdp0730bf.exe is the file thats in the bios now, and which was
> then saved using the awdflash.exe as oldbios.exe thats on that disk
> now. FWIW, awdflash.exe CAN see the oldbios.exe file just fine.  I
> have now downloaded the new one twice from biostar.com.tw.
>
>Has anyone got a clue as to what the heck is wrong here?
>
Well, it turns out I was the one without a clue, I was downloading the 
bios images from biostar.com.tw, which are NOT apparently correct.  On a 
hunch, I specifically went to the usa1.biostar.com site, and found there 
was a different file posted there for my M7NCD-pro board.

That one installed without any hiccups, but I saw where the sign-on said 
it was DDR400 dual channel ram, whereas before the update it was DDR333 
dual channel ram.  As the XP2800 athlon isn't rated for DDR400, I backed 
into the bios and reset the fsb for 166 mhz which should give me a 333 
fsb.  But it still says DDR400 at signon.  So I guess we'll see if its 
now stable at a 400 mhz fsb even if its set to 166/333.

dmesg says its running the cpu at 2080mhz, which is normal.

Has anyone else observed this and care to comment?

>>Regards,

-- 
Cheers, Gene
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
99.36% setiathome rank, not too shabby for a WV hillbilly
Yahoo.com and AOL/TW attorneys please note, additions to the above
message by Gene Heskett are:
Copyright 2005 by Maurice Eugene Heskett, all rights reserved.
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