Problem with SMI fix

Some progress. It occured to me that I had a dvd/cd drive in the "pile" which I had stopped using because the door would not always open (paper clip solution) but mainly because it stopped working with CD's but used to work with DVD's. Created the 8.04 ISO on a DVD and no problem installing it. Run the latency test at first it still had the spikes. Than I doubled the memory from 1x512 to 2x512 and it seems to be hanging in there after 20 minutes where it would spike in less than 5 min.
2012/08/14 05:09:13
RTH| lat min| ovl min| lat avg| lat max| ovl max| overruns
RTD| -680| -695| 3306| 23104| 28287| 0
RTD| -680| -695| 3372| 17636| 28287| 0
RTD| -684| -695| 3351| 24973| 28287| 0
RTD| -685| -695| 3321| 15689| 28287| 0
RTD| -680| -695| 3316| 26840| 28287| 0
RTD| -681| -695| 3307| 17590| 28287| 0
RTD| -686| -695| 3375| 24792| 28287| 0
RTD| -685| -695| 3343| 12006| 28287| 0
RTD| -686| -695| 3293| 17887| 28287| 0
RTD| -680| -695| 3312| 14592| 28287| 0
RTD| -680| -695| 3378| 14241| 28287| 0
RTD| -680| -695| 3330| 18487| 28287| 0
RTD| -681| -695| 3294| 14982| 28287| 0
RTD| -680| -695| 3306| 12685| 28287| 0
RTD| -686| -695| 3334| 16193| 28287| 0
RTD| -685| -695| 3288| 15050| 28287| 0
RTD| -681| -695| 3326| 24640| 28287| 0
RTD| -682| -695| 3281| 13126| 28287| 0
RTD| -686| -695| 3291| 24490| 28287| 0
RTD| -683| -695| 3384| 16788| 28287| 0
RTD| -683| -695| 3324| 12373| 28287| 0
2012/08/14 05:09:34

I am not throwing any parties yet as the system has no load other than the test. The project for today is figure out how to create a load. Being a real novice at Linux just running this or that is a major project for me reading how to do this and that....
Thanks for help so far

Tony

Well it's back.
RTH| lat min| ovl min| lat avg| lat max| ovl max| overruns
RTD| -530| -536| 2210| 14215| 17777| 0
RTD| -532| -536| 2075| 13529| 17777| 0
RTD| -528| -536| 2105| 14424| 17777| 0
RTD| -530| -536| 2097| 15322| 17777| 0
RTD| -530| -536| 2160| 13936| 17777| 0
RTD| -534| -536| 2081| 14566| 17777| 0
RTD| -530| -536| 2144| 13552| 17777| 0
RTD| -529| -536| 2100| 14847| 17777| 0
RTD| -530| -536| 2060| 13835| 17777| 0
RTD| -530| -536| 2089| 14149| 17777| 0
RTD| -530| -536| 2177| 13901| 17777| 0
RTD| -532| -536| 2120| 14750| 17777| 0
RTD| -530| -536| 2154| 12838| 17777| 0
RTD| -530| -536| 2102| 12756| 17777| 0
RTD| -528| -536| 2120| 13540| 17777| 0
RTD| -531| -536| 2084| 14236| 17777| 0
RTD| -525| -536| 2419| 3162332| 3162332| 31
RTD| -534| -536| 2140| 13898| 3162332| 31
RTD| -528| -536| 2148| 13336| 3162332| 31
RTD| -527| -536| 2129| 13734| 3162332| 31
RTD| -529| -536| 2109| 14092| 3162332| 31
2012/08/15 05:51:41
RTH| lat min| ovl min| lat avg| lat max| ovl max| overruns
RTD| -529| -536| 2202| 15205| 3162332| 31
RTD| -525| -536| 2146| 13809| 3162332| 31
RTD| -525| -536| 2188| 13537| 3162332| 31
RTD| -530| -536| 2121| 13281| 3162332| 31
RTD| -530| -536| 2121| 12879| 3162332| 31
RTD| -535| -536| 2106| 13409| 3162332| 31
RTD| -530| -536| 2085| 13125| 3162332| 31
RTD| -533| -536| 2090| 14404| 3162332| 31
RTD| -532| -536| 2089| 14352| 3162332| 31
RTD| -528| -536| 2148| 13988| 3162332| 31
RTD| -534| -536| 2083| 12868| 3162332| 31
RTD| -528| -536| 2130| 13722| 3162332| 31
RTD| -530| -536| 2105| 13661| 3162332| 31
RTD| -531| -536| 2107| 14067| 3162332| 31
RTD| -536| -536| 2110| 13856| 3162332| 31
RTD| -530| -536| 2108| 14272| 3162332| 31
RTD| -530| -536| 2070| 12602| 3162332| 31
RTD| -529| -536| 2103| 13881| 3162332| 31
RTD| -529| -536| 2175| 15564| 3162332| 31
RTD| -530| -536| 2136| 14324| 3162332| 31
RTD| -529| -536| 2111| 14183| 3162332| 31
2012/08/15 05:52:02
RTH| lat min| ovl min| lat avg| lat max| ovl max| overruns
RTD| -530| -536| 2203|

Since I last posted I installed an older ATI AGP (32MB) video card. Turned everything off in Bios that could be turned off including sound.
The spike is very intermittent. I have seen it seconds into the test or anything up to almost 30 minutes.
Any words of wisdom before I convert this Motherboard into a frisbee?
Thanks
Tony

I apologize. I did notice that it was actually 3 million and forgot to correct my previous number. Well let me see what I can find
Thank you
Tony

I have a couple or three questions:
I am testing anothe motherboard under 8.04. It is showing a lot of promisse with spikes or over runs at all. This one uses an AMD Athlon XP1800. I have looked at the list of "good" hardware and I notice that many instances it is not mentioned what version of Ubuntu they were tested under. Does this mean that they work under 8.xx and 10.xx ?
For this CPU is there benefits to run under 10.xx?
TIA
Tony

Hi

That list was mostly compiled before 10.04 was released, so most were tested under 8.04

There is no advantage whatsoever in using 10.04 on a board of that vintage, see my FAQ for some of the reasons
www.linuxcnc.org/index.php/english/compo...ew&catid=18&id=19125

10.04 is needed for newer boards, only because the 2.6.24 kernel did not support the chipsets etc they have on them.
Sometimes you can ignore these, if for instance it is the sound that is not supported.
Sometimes however the Live CD for 8.04 will not even run let alone install on newer boards, so there is no choice.

When people do install 10.04, on multi core processors especially, they then have to take steps to revert the board back as if it was a single processor, to get half decent latency.

Higher number is not better where Ubuntu is concerned, best is what runs best on your machine.

regards

I am seeing something strange with the "new motherboard" which is an Asus A/7V333. I can run the latency test from the command line all day line no problem.
If I try to run it from the drop down menu the system sort of goes into La-La land for a while than it opens a window, nothing happens, than closes it.
If I try to run the test from the command line after that I get:

insmod: error inserting '/usr/realtime-2.6.24-16-rtai/modules/rtai_lxrt.ko': -1 Invalid module format
ERROR: cannot load /usr/realtime-2.6.24-16-rtai/modules/rtai_lxrt.ko
CANNOT CREATE MAILBOX
CANNOT FIND MAILBOX

The only way I can get it to run is by rebooting. I am fairly certain that there is a more elegant way to clear this that I don't know about. But is there a problem with the earlier version of LinuxCNC that causes this?

TIA
Tony

Hi

It sounds like the realtime system is not unloading properly for some reason after the first latency test.

What on earth the

CANNOT CREATE MAILBOX
CANNOT FIND MAILBOX

is about I don't know, maybe a corrupted menu.

It really does not matter, you should only need to run latency-test once properly in the lifetime of the machine, unless you change hardware (video card perhaps).

Run it for several hours as per the instructions, write down the figures and go from there

regards