Re: panic at boot on 4/200

[David Brownlee <abs%absd.org@localhost>]

On Sun, 4 Jan 2026 at 17:06, foo bar <tokenalt%gmail.com@localhost> wrote:
>
> On Wed, Dec 31, 2025 at 10:06 PM foo bar <tokenalt%gmail.com@localhost> wrote:
> >
> > Hello all
> >
> > I have recently gotten my 3200 & 4200 CPU boards working in a 4/110
> > case and while the 3200 works fine the 4200 does not. The kernel I'm
> > booting on the 4200 will boot fine on a 4300 but on the 4200 it panics
> > with mutex errors. I don't know if this is bad hardware or if there's
> > something different between the two CPU boards. Unfortunately the
> > ethernet does not work on the 4200 board so testing new kernels is
> > slow.
>
> So after doing many test boots I've found netbsd 1.5.x will boot on it
> but everything else, including sunos 4.1.1, will fail in various ways.
> The fact that even sunos doesn't work on it leads me to suspect that
> this is bad hardware. A shame since these boards are getting rare
> these days. If anyone has suggestions I'm all ears and sorry for the
> noise.

(Some random questions)

Could it be bad memory or an issue with one of the connections (uh P2?) ?

Does the PROM have a real memory tester? If you can boot NetBSD-1.5 on
it I'm assuming a userland memory tester would work.. or even compile
a custom version of boot which just allocates and tests all memory?
Might be able to compile a current kernel with a chunk of unused
memory at one end to move things around...

For curiosity you could test various current kernels between 1.5 and
1.6 to find out where something broke. Without a working network how
are you getting kernels across - something like a blue scsi?

Actually, if the ethernet is bad could it potentially be causing the
issue - panic on attempting to attach it?

I'm not familiar with the 3200 board - could it be running the
bus/memory slower and avoiding the issue?

Good hunting if you are still inclined :)

Thanks

David