On Apr 16, 2007, at 10:39 AM, J.C. Roberts wrote:
On Sunday 15 April 2007 15:23, Bryan Vyhmeister wrote:
Any idea if it surfaces on dual processor CS20 machines? I have the
opportunity to pick up three dual 833 Mhz CS20 machines.
I've been told the "alpha bug" has been with us since (at least)
OpenBSD
3.0 and many people have tried to solve it. As one of the people who
tried, and (miserably) failed, to find the alpha bug, I can say it is
really an esoteric problem. A lot of information points to a rare race
condition (i.e. software fault) on particular system under particular
loads but no one has managed to prove it either way. Heck, for all I
know it could even be an unknown hardware glitch that never
received an
errata because no one at DEC/Compaq/HP ever noticed it with supported
operating systems.
I've never seen the "alpha bug" on my DS20L (equivalent to the
CS20) or
my 500/500 but I have seen it on my PC* boxes. Other people have had
the exact opposite experience. The only time I've hit the bug was
during system builds and in contrast, others have reported hitting the
bug at other times during normal operation. -- The trouble is, when
you have a strange "mystery bug" floating out there, it may or may not
be correctly blamed for any and all problems.
Thank you for the followup. I guess I will just try and see what
happens. I should dig out my PC164 whatever box and see if it
exhibits the issue.
Bryan
