[Beowulf] Barcelona hardware error: how to detect

[Mikhail Kuzminsky]

In message from "Jason Clinton" <jclinton at advancedclustering.com> 
(Thu, 5 Jun 2008 13:16:33 -0500):
>On Thu, Jun 5, 2008 at 1:09 PM, Mikhail Kuzminsky <kus at free.net> 
>wrote:
>
>> In message from Mark Hahn <hahn at mcmaster.ca> (Thu, 5 Jun 2008 
>>13:55:01
>> -0400 (EDT)):
>>
>>> I'm mystified by this: B2 was broken, so using it without the bios
>>> workaround is just a mistake or masochism.  the workaround _did_ 
>>>apparently
>>> have performance implications, but that's why B3 exists...
>>>
>>> do you mean you know of G03 problems on B2 systems which are 
>>>operating
>>> _with_ the workaround?
>>>
>>
>> I don't know exactly, but I think the crash was under absence of
>> workaround, because I was not informed that there was some kernel 
>>patches or
>> BIOS changes. This was interesting for me also, because I have no
>> information how this hardware problem may be affected in the "real 
>>life".
>>  Mikhail
>>
>
>The B2 BIOS work-around is to disable the L3 cache which gives you a 
>10-20%
>performance hit with no reduction in power consumption.
>
>The kernel patch is very extensive and, last I heard, under NDA. AMD 
>has
>said publicly that the patch gives you a 1-2% performance hit.

This URL is old, but may give some information:

https://www.x86-64.org/pipermail/discuss/2007-December/010260.html

Mikhail