Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!xanth!mcnc!decvax!ima!mirror!frog!jr From: jr@frog.UUCP (John Richardson) Newsgroups: comp.unix.i386 Subject: Re: AMI motherboards design flaws Summary: re: Which address'es ? Keywords: AMI motherboards design flaws Message-ID: <1782@frog.UUCP> Date: 14 Aug 89 18:34:00 GMT References: <329@csense.UUCP> Distribution: na Organization: Charles River Data Systems, Framingham MA Lines: 28 In article <329@csense.UUCP>, bote@csense.UUCP (John Boteler) writes: > I may be hasty, but at least I am honest. > > I just got word from a technician at Equinox, the makers > of that tricked-out 24-port serial board, who indicated > some design problems in the AMI 386 motherboards, both > Mark I and Mark II designs, which leave me with serious > reservations about using these in a multi-user environment > such as UNIX. This after exclaiming the wonder of these > products! > > He confirmed what I already knew: that the cache sticks > its nose into address space left alone by many other > m/bs, causing havoc with network cards, smart serial > boards addressed up high, etc. That's the least of it; it > also retrieves incorrect data infrequently, but > occasionally, and without detection under very heavy > memory processing loads! That scares me. > Which addresses do they cache? We just decided to use these motherboards and I have not run into ` problems yet. I will be using a 32K WD 8003 Ethernet controller board, and of course I do not need cache problems. Also did they forget the A31 convention? JR