Re: [PLUG] AMD vs Intel, 486DX4/100

[Bill Jonas <bj@netaxs.com>]

On Wed, 3 May 2000, Bill Jonas wrote:

>Anybody know if those particular chips are pinout- and
>pin-layout-compatible?

I guess I should clarify.  I recently acquired an AMD 486DX4/100.  I've
tried to get Linux going on it, to no avail.  The Debian rescue disk, a
simple boot disk and a LILO boot disk (both created with Slack7), and
even booting a DOS floppy and using LOADLIN.EXE all result in the same
error.  (Recently, after checking out some info @ seagate.com and
changing a BIOS setting, a hard drive boot will give this same error.)  
Right after the BogoMIPS check and the memory check, when the kernel
displays, "Checking if this processor honours the WP bit when in
supervisor mode... OK.", I get a kernel oops and a stack dump, led off
by the error message, "Unable to handle kernel paging request at virtual
address $ADDRESS".  The oops is then followed by

Kernel panic: Attempted to kill the idle task!
In swapper task - not syncing

On the advice of a co-worker, I suspected that it might be the CPU.  
(The message is the same each time, tho' I haven't bothered to check and
see if the registers are different.)  I checked out the Hardware-HOWTO
(http://www.linuxdoc.org/HOWTO/Hardware-HOWTO-4.html), and it says, "A
few very early AMD 486DX's may hang in some special situations. All
current chips should be okay and getting a chip swap for old CPU's
should not be a problem."

I asked the original question because I was considering getting an Intel
486DX4/100 to swap with it.  Should I do that, or does it seem
worthwhile to pursue a replacement chip from AMD?  Or might the problem
be something else?  It has a standard 1.44MB floppy (brand new, replaced
because the one that came in it was bad), a Seagate ST3660A hard drive,
a motherboard of indeterminate origin, a 3COM EtherLink III (that I had
pulled out during boot-up before while I was trying to diagnose the
problem), a generic single-channel IDE I/O card, and some flavor of a
Trident 1024K video card.  If somebody thinks it might be worthwhile to
try something other than the CPU, I'm welcome to suggestions.

Any ideas?

Bill --
>Ever heard of .cshrc?
That's a city in Bosnia.  Right?
(Discussion in comp.os.linux.misc on the intuitiveness of commands.)

Harry Browne for President:  http://www.harrybrowne2000.org/
Visit me at                  http://www.netaxs.com/~bj/


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