AMD K6 with more than 32MB - system hangs

Support knowledgebase (bk_amdsystemstops)
Applies to

SuSE Linux: All versions

Symptom:

The installation or booting hangs, eventually you see the kernel-message:

AMD K6 stepping B detected -  system stability may be impaired when more than 32 MB are used.
If this message does not appear the problems lies on something else (see below).

Cause:

The AMD-K6 processor has a bug that does not allow the use of more than 32 MB of RAM.

The actual symptom is a segmentation fault (see also; SIG11 FAQ)

This is a known problem that has been found to be dependent on the amount of RAM; everything under 32MB should, in this case, work fine.

If you're having problems with less than 32MB of RAM, we advise you first to read the the SIG11 FAQ (a href="http://www.bitwizard.nl/sig11") as well as our Support Databank article on general hardware problems a href="http://sdb.suse.de/sdb/en/html/kfr_58.html"

Solution:

This known problem is not easily solved, information can be found online at http://www.multimania.com/poulot/k6bug.html

Here's a snippet of one FAQ concerning this problem (http://www.multimania.com/poulot/k6bug_faq.html#qa12):

Q12: My K6 has the bug. What should I do now ?

Here is AMD's answer to this question :

AMD recently received reports from a limited number of users having
intermittent problems while running core re-compiles of the Linux
shareware operating system. Our systems engineering group has duplicated
the observation and determined that it is related to a previously know
erratum. Full technical details of this erratum are documented in
section 2.6.2 of the AMD-K6 MMX Enhanced Processor Revision Guide
on our website, www.amd.com. Users that feel they are being affected by
this problem, should contact AMD's support line at (408) 749-3060 and
ask for Dan Hingle or Glen Garcia.
People living outside of the USA should contact their local AMD technical support.
See also:
o General hardware problems
o Faulty processor AMD K6-2 with 100Mhz system clock

Keywords: AMD PROBLEMS, K62, CPU, SIG11, 32MB, MMX, STEPPING, B9370XXXX

SDB-bk_amdsystemstops, Copyright SuSE Linux AG, Nürnberg, Germany - Version: 05. Nov 1999
SuSE Linux AG - Last generated: 17. Apr 2002 by wimer (sdb_gen 1.40.0)