Folks,
This is just a "heads up" on a problem you may want to be forewarned
about.
There is a bug that manifests itself when you have an AlphaStation 600
5/266 running Digital UNIX (OSF/1...) with pass 4 EV5 (21164) chip in
combination with SRM firmware V2.2-7/OSF palcode 1.18-0 (and perhaps
other versions too). The net result is a drastic drop in performance
(up to 35% in our tests), apparently caused by the data cache being
disabled. Check the firmware version from the >>> prompt with the SHOW
CONFIG command. The vital parts of the version (-7 and -0) aren't
visible through uerf.
The fix is to install SRM V2.2-13. Our CSC supplied us with a bootable
floppy disk (in VMS format!) with the relevant levels on, although I
expect they'll also be on the next firmware update CD. This fix has
been around only since about November 8th. I haven't checked to see
if it's made it to
ftp://ftp.digital.com/pub/Digital/Alpha/firmware/interim/ yet.
I was starting to get some severe hassle from the owners of the
affected machine, so I think this floppy is going to be framed on my
wall as the greatest single performance enhancement I've ever seen!
Note the error does NOT affect pass 2 chips and does NOT affect VMS or
NT systems, only DU. I have no idea whether or not the bug hits server
systems (eg 2100, 8200/8400) with the same chip.
Cheers,
Rob
Received on Tue Nov 21 1995 - 01:29:05 NZDT