Insufficient memory CFE error on some cold boots

[mbrantley]

This problem has been worrying me for weeks now. Every once in a while, a cold boot will halt with the following white text on a black background:

Loader:elf Filesys:amigafs Dev:ide0.0 File:amigaboot.of Options:(null)
Loading: Failed.
Could not load ide0.0:amigaboot.of: Insufficient memory
*** command status = -5

Anybody know what this means?

When it happens, it usually happens for several consecutive power-off-on cycles and then the X1000 will boot to Amiga operating system normally.

AmigaOS is on a SATA drive. There are also a pair of IDE drives installed. I have just swapped out a rounded IDE cable for a flat one, but the problem happens whether they are plugged in or not.

I have 4GB of RAM installed by AmigaKit. The highest temperature reported by the Show Temp command gets up to 54 for Remote 1.

Any ideas?

[mbrantley]

A heat thing? Is 54 degrees a lot? I have two RadeonHD cards installed, so they by far are generating more heat than anything else in the case. I noticed the PowerColor 6850 single-slot card I have is very hot to the touch when running. The back plate for the slot below the 6850 was searing hot to the touch.

I have now swapped out the single-slot PowerColor 6850 for a dual-slot GigaByte 6850 that I already had in the house. It has two fans instead of one and an impressive heatsink arrangement. Temp has now dropped to 51 degrees when running and the heat is now out on the heatsink away from the motherboard instead of close to it like before with the PowerÇolor card.

I'll run like this for a bit and see if my problems go away. Definitely like it cooler rather than hotter no matter what else is going on.

I don't mind lots of cooling fans (this is not a quiet environment here), so I'll ponder better cooling arrangements if that is the problem.

[sundown]

A heat thing? Is 54 degrees a lot? I have two RadeonHD cards installed, so they by far are generating more heat than anything else in the case. I noticed the PowerColor 6850 single-slot card I have is very hot to the touch when running. The back plate for the slot below the 6850 was searing hot to the touch.

I have now swapped out the single-slot PowerColor 6850 for a dual-slot GigaByte 6850 that I already had in the house. It has two fans instead of one and an impressive heatsink arrangement. Temp has now dropped to 51 degrees when running and the heat is now out on the heatsink away from the motherboard instead of close to it like before with the PowerÇolor card.

I'll run like this for a bit and see if my problems go away. Definitely like it cooler rather than hotter no matter what else is going on.

I don't mind lots of cooling fans (this is not a quiet environment here), so I'll ponder better cooling arrangements if that is the problem.

Operating temp specs for the PA6T: -40C to +85C

I have seen the "out of memory" issue at times, mostly when I quit linux & boot into os4, could be an issue with CFE itself.

Ken

[trevordick]

A heat thing? Is 54 degrees a lot? I have two RadeonHD cards installed, so they by far are generating more heat than anything else in the case. I noticed the PowerColor 6850 single-slot card I have is very hot to the touch when running. The back plate for the slot below the 6850 was searing hot to the touch.

I have now swapped out the single-slot PowerColor 6850 for a dual-slot GigaByte 6850 that I already had in the house. It has two fans instead of one and an impressive heatsink arrangement. Temp has now dropped to 51 degrees when running and the heat is now out on the heatsink away from the motherboard instead of close to it like before with the PowerÇolor card.

I'll run like this for a bit and see if my problems go away. Definitely like it cooler rather than hotter no matter what else is going on.

I don't mind lots of cooling fans (this is not a quiet environment here), so I'll ponder better cooling arrangements if that is the problem.

I don't think it is related to your graphics cards. As Sundown said it appears to be related some CFE issue and I also experience it on occassion when I'm "playing" with Linux. I've also noticed that the SATA cables are not as secure as the older IDE cables and that it is very easy to dislodge them when unseating and removing gfx cards (as I have done quire a lot when testing various gfx cards & drivers).

If I do get the CFE memory error, I clear it by powering down and unplugging the PSU.

Trevor

[mbrantley]

Thanks, Trevor and Sundown. I've also heard from another X1000 owner who has mentioned the CFE thing has happened from time to time. So I won't worry too much about it now. I've not tried clearing it by pulling the plug, so that is something I will do next time.

I will say I was alarmed by how hot the adjacent slot cover was next to the single-slot PowerColor 6850 card I have and Trevor has blogged about. It was too hot to hold my finger to it for even a moment. So I have swapped the card for a 2-slot GigaByte 6850 card I already had in house, and that seems to have a way better cooling design. It's a bigger card, but with 2 fans and a nice heat pipe arrangement. The pipes get hot, but they are far from the moterboard and other components.

[trevordick]

A heat thing? Is 54 degrees a lot? I have two RadeonHD cards installed, so they by far are generating more heat than anything else in the case. I noticed the PowerColor 6850 single-slot card I have is very hot to the touch when running. The back plate for the slot below the 6850 was searing hot to the touch.

BTW I've been running with my PowerColor HD6850 installed all day and neither the back plate nor heatsink on the card is hot to touch (only slightly warm).

I have not been performaing any major gfx operations but have been running a combination of AmigaOS 4 and Linux at various times during the day.

Trevor

[daz]

BTW I've been running with my PowerColor HD6850 installed all day and neither the back plate nor heatsink on the card is hot to touch (only slightly warm).

I have not been performaing any major gfx operations but have been running a combination of AmigaOS 4 and Linux at various times during the day.

Trevor

SHHH!! You'll give away our secrets!

Anyway, if you want to heat up the card 3D is the way to go, a long session of TuxRacer or OpenArena should do the job.

Regards
Darren

[LyleHaze]

Anyway, if you want to heat up the card 3D is the way to go, a long session of TuxRacer or OpenArena should do the job.

Regards
Darren

So, can we call this proof that AmigaOS4 is "cooler" than Linux?

Works for me!

LyleHaze

[mbrantley]

I am happy to report that I've been spending a lot of time on my X1000 today and it is far more stable now than it was for a period of weeks. I haven't seen that CFE error again but part of that could be that I have not had to restart as often as I have had to do because of the frequent lockups I was experiencing. Not sure if it was a heat thing or a connection thing but I did reconfigure cards and drives and also firmly reseated all SATA cables, power connections, etc.

Trevor, glad the PowerColor 6850 is running cool for you. But things were definitely hot in my machine when running with that card and also my PowerColor RadeonHD 4850 installed at the same time. I'm serious... that back plate over the empty slot between them was searing hot, believe me! Now I am running cooler with a GigaByte RadeonHD 6850 (2 slots) and a smaller Sapphire RadeaonHD 4350 (1 slot) to feed the secondary display. I also repositioned my five hard drives (1) to be more properly in front of the two forward case fans and also added another intake fan at the bottom of the Fractal Design case. In the process I disconnected and reconnected all the cabling, so if there was a problem there I might have corrected it.

I'm not sure what to blame for the problematic running of the the machine, but now things are back to the good-running way they were a few weeks ago. And whether the heat contributed to the problem or not, I'm glad things are cooler in there now.

[Hans-Joerg Frieden]

I have noticed the "Insufficient memory" error from time to time myself, and I think it is mostly an initialization error of CFE's ide code, which wasn't very good to begin with and does have its share of issues even after I went over it. The original version didn't even work with a second SATA port, it would flat-out crash the machine if you tried to access it. I did make a lot of changes on that code so that it finally somewhat works, but it is still quite wonky. Unfortunately, my time for this kind of stuff is limited.