8 ms·

50+ Segmentation Faults per Hour: Continuing to Stress Ryzen

93 points by pella 9y ago

pella 9y ago
similar problem on EPYC https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/6rmq6q/epyc_7551_mining_performance/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/6rmq6q/epyc_7551_minin... https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/6rrbsp/epyc_confirmed_to_suffer_from_the_segfault_issue/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/6rrbsp/epyc_confirmed_...
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- VThornheart 9y ago
  The segfaults repro on Intel systems as well with his setup: https://www.phoronix.com/forums/forum/phoronix/latest-phoronix-articles/967080-ryzen-test-stress-run-make-it-easy-to-cause-segmentation-faults-on-zen-cpus/page10 https://www.phoronix.com/forums/forum/phoronix/latest-phoron... The segfaults being seen on that Epyc test are not the fault of the hardware - either that, or they're a problem that is common between Intel and AMD processors somehow.
pmoriarty 9y ago
Should people planning to buy a Ryzen system hold off until this is fixed?
- qeternity 9y ago
  The tester in the article says he hasn't had this happen on his daily use machine, and that it seems to only happen under very strenuous workloads. Most people should be fine but there's still a risk.
- Kenji 9y ago
  I wouldn't go for hardware with known flaws like that. You never know what you are vulnerable to. Who knows, maybe someone finds out how you can abuse this flaw with JavaScript or something. It seems to me like AMD bit off more than they can chew.
- tscs37 9y ago
  personally, I would say yes. I've been happily using my 1700x on my personal machine for months without much issue (except when as noted above, the issue was induced with very very high CPU load, manually and in a controlled manner). Unless you do very CPU heavy work that lasts several minutes or longer (like kernel compiling, chromium compiling, autotools, starting electron apps), especially when you run gentoo (most likely), it should not be an issue. I do a lot of dev work myself, so I do compile often but a short compiler run hasn't ever induced this bug and longer linux kernel builds suffered more from my inadequate cooling solutions rather than the CPU having bugs.
- diegoprzl 9y ago
  I would wait. I bought a 1800x Ryzen and had some stability problems under Debian Buster which disappeared after a BIOS update, but I'm not compiling large projects continuously nor it has been up for a lot of time (maybe 3 days uptime? Got the new computer two weeks ago.. when it gets to 100+ days uptime I will be happy) Under Windows it worked flawlessly even with the old BIOS.
- jryan49 9y ago
  Anecdotally, I'm using Windows, haven't had any issues. I also tried running https://github.com/suaefar/ryzen-test https://github.com/suaefar/ryzen-test in a VM for only about an hour at 100% load and had no issues.
sofaofthedamned 9y ago
I have the same with a Kaby Lake laptop btw (XPS 13) where random segfaults happen. This is with the very latest BIOS update from a day or two ago. Modern CPUs suck.
- emh68 9y ago
  Can we all switch to Xeons and <whatever server CPUs AMD has out now>? Or do those have similar issues?
  - dijit 9y ago
    Kaby Lake Xeons exist. Source: I have one in my Precision 5520.
  - sofaofthedamned 9y ago
    No idea, but honestly I can't be arsed anymore with new stuff when it's so unreliable. This is from a few minutes ago (the timestamps are hours old, but that's because dmesg timestamps don't take into account sleep time) [Sat Aug 5 13:46:21 2017] ------------[ cut here ]------------ [Sat Aug 5 13:46:21 2017] WARNING: CPU: 0 PID: 16026 at drivers/base/firmware_class.c:1225 _request_firmware+0x51f/0x8a0 [Sat Aug 5 13:46:21 2017] Modules linked in: ccm rfcomm fuse xt_CHECKSUM ipt_MASQUERADE nf_nat_masquerade_ipv4 tun xt_addrtype nf_conntrack_netbios_ns nf_conntrack_broadcast xt_CT ip6t_rpfilter ip6t_REJECT nf_reject_ipv6 ip_set nfnetlink ebtable_nat ebtable_broute ip6table_nat nf_conntrack_ipv6 nf_defrag_ipv6 nf_nat_ipv6 xt_conntrack ip6table_mangle ip6table_raw br_netfilter bridge stp llc overlay ip6table_security iptable_nat nf_conntrack_ipv4 nf_defrag_ipv4 nf_nat_ipv4 nf_nat nf_conntrack libcrc32c iptable_mangle iptable_raw iptable_security ebtable_filter ebtables ip6table_filter ip6_tables cmac bnep sunrpc arc4 uvcvideo videobuf2_vmalloc videobuf2_memops videobuf2_v4l2 videobuf2_core videodev media btusb btrtl snd_soc_skl snd_soc_skl_ipc snd_soc_sst_ipc snd_soc_sst_dsp snd_hda_ext_core dell_wmi wmi_bmof snd_soc_sst_match [Sat Aug 5 13:46:21 2017] tpm_crb snd_hda_codec_hdmi snd_hda_codec_realtek snd_soc_core snd_hda_codec_generic snd_compress snd_pcm_dmaengine ac97_bus iTCO_wdt iTCO_vendor_support hid_multitouch mei_wdt dell_laptop dell_smbios dcdbas intel_rapl x86_pkg_temp_thermal intel_powerclamp coretemp kvm_intel kvm ath10k_pci ath10k_core irqbypass crct10dif_pclmul crc32_pclmul mac80211 ghash_clmulni_intel intel_cstate intel_uncore intel_rapl_perf ath cfg80211 joydev snd_hda_intel snd_hda_codec rtsx_pci_ms snd_hda_core memstick snd_hwdep snd_seq snd_seq_device snd_pcm snd_timer snd i2c_i801 soundcore hci_uart intel_pch_thermal mei_me btbcm idma64 btqca mei shpchp processor_thermal_device btintel intel_soc_dts_iosf intel_lpss_pci bluetooth wmi soc_button_array intel_vbtn tpm_tis tpm_tis_core ecdh_generic pinctrl_sunrisepoint [Sat Aug 5 13:46:21 2017] rfkill int3403_thermal intel_lpss_acpi pinctrl_intel intel_lpss intel_hid int340x_thermal_zone int3400_thermal tpm acpi_als acpi_thermal_rel sparse_keymap kfifo_buf industrialio acpi_pad rtsx_pci_sdmmc mmc_core i915 crc32c_intel i2c_algo_bit drm_kms_helper serio_raw drm nvme nvme_core rtsx_pci i2c_hid video [Sat Aug 5 13:46:21 2017] CPU: 0 PID: 16026 Comm: kworker/u9:0 Not tainted 4.13.0-0.rc3.git1.2.fc27.x86_64 #1 [Sat Aug 5 13:46:21 2017] Hardware name: Dell Inc. XPS 13 9360/0839Y6, BIOS 1.3.7 07/04/2017 [Sat Aug 5 13:46:21 2017] Workqueue: hci0 hci_power_on [bluetooth] [Sat Aug 5 13:46:21 2017] task: ffff9d2bf69e8000 task.stack: ffffb77c07014000 [Sat Aug 5 13:46:21 2017] RIP: 0010:_request_firmware+0x51f/0x8a0 [Sat Aug 5 13:46:21 2017] RSP: 0000:ffffb77c07017c50 EFLAGS: 00010282 [Sat Aug 5 13:46:21 2017] RAX: 000000000000002c RBX: ffffb77c07017d18 RCX: 0000000000000000 [Sat Aug 5 13:46:21 2017] RDX: 0000000000000000 RSI: ffff9d2cff40e118 RDI: ffff9d2cff40e118 [Sat Aug 5 13:46:21 2017] RBP: ffffb77c07017cc0 R08: 0000000000000487 R09: 0000000000000007 [Sat Aug 5 13:46:21 2017] R10: fffff404518d9200 R11: ffffffff94313aed R12: ffff9d2c81d13ae0 [Sat Aug 5 13:46:21 2017] R13: ffffb77c07017d10 R14: ffff9d2c94f424e8 R15: ffff9d2c695de068 [Sat Aug 5 13:46:21 2017] FS: 0000000000000000(0000) GS:ffff9d2cff400000(0000) knlGS:0000000000000000 [Sat Aug 5 13:46:21 2017] CS: 0010 DS: 0000 ES: 0000 CR0: 0000000080050033 [Sat Aug 5 13:46:21 2017] CR2: 000000fd4a1b4b48 CR3: 00000004536d4000 CR4: 00000000003406f0 [Sat Aug 5 13:46:21 2017] Call Trace: [Sat Aug 5 13:46:21 2017] ? snprintf+0x45/0x70 [Sat Aug 5 13:46:21 2017] request_firmware+0x37/0x50 [Sat Aug 5 13:46:21 2017] btusb_setup_qca+0x22d/0x410 [btusb] [Sat Aug 5 13:46:21 2017] ? __pm_runtime_resume+0x5b/0x80 [Sat Aug 5 13:46:21 2017] btusb_open+0x45/0x250 [btusb] [Sat Aug 5 13:46:21 2017] hci_dev_do_open+0x6c/0x590 [bluetooth] [Sat Aug 5 13:46:21 2017] ? try_to_wake_up+0x59/0x470 [Sat Aug 5 13:46:21 2017] hci_power_on+0x4e/0x200 [bluetooth] [Sat Aug 5 13:46:21 2017] ? lock_timer_base+0x81/0xa0 [Sat Aug 5 13:46:21 2017] process_one_work+0x193/0x3c0 [Sat Aug 5 13:46:21 2017] worker_thread+0x4a/0x3a0 [Sat Aug 5 13:46:21 2017] kthread+0x125/0x140 [Sat Aug 5 13:46:21 2017] ? process_one_work+0x3c0/0x3c0 [Sat Aug 5 13:46:21 2017] ? kthread_park+0x60/0x60 [Sat Aug 5 13:46:21 2017] ret_from_fork+0x25/0x30 [Sat Aug 5 13:46:21 2017] Code: 08 48 83 fb 28 74 45 48 8b 8b a0 ee aa 93 e9 e6 fe ff ff 48 c7 c7 a0 ad fa 93 e8 4d 71 2f 00 48 c7 c7 88 15 cf 93 e8 42 86 b6 ff <0f> ff 41 b9 90 ff ff ff e9 06 fd ff ff 48 c7 45 a8 ff ff ff 7f [Sat Aug 5 13:46:21 2017] ---[ end trace ff5be3b6989ab935 ]---
verytrivial 9y ago
In some respects this is vastly better than a once-a-month fault. AMD have a better chance of reproducing it even if, clock speeds being what they are these days, the are a tonne of instructions churning between events.
suenyoj 9y ago
How much money does Intel pay for such articles?
- dna_polymerase 9y ago
  It's funny, to say the least, how these articles pop up merely days before the 1920x launch. The press just received their Threadrippers a few days ago... Edit: No I'm not saying this is Intel, but it's sad that their release will be overshadowed by this. I really hoped for AMD to finally catch up with Intel because we all could profit from a second big player in the game.
  - icelancer 9y ago
    What? Plenty of people are running simple test suites and stress tests on new CPUs to write up. This is nothing out of the ordinary at all.
theincredulousk 9y ago
This seems like a shill article because black box testing makes almost no sense in this situation. These are seg faults not hardware lockups. Maybe get a kernel dump and gdb? You know, debugging.
vancan1ty 9y ago
Note that it appears that a large number of the segfaults which Michael (phoronix) is reporting may be coming from a software issue. In particular, people on the phoronix forums are reporting that conftest segfaults are a known software issue and also one has reported that he was able to reproduce the conftest segfaults on an intel CPU. So not saying that there's not a problem with Ryzen, but it is possible a large number of the errors are false positives arising from a known software issue. I would wait Michael runs the same test on an Intel CPU with no problems to pass judgement.
- laydn 9y ago
  Agreed. It is a very basic comparison, which should be done before posting the article. I don't understand why he keeps posting these before running the exact same test on different processors (an Intel or even a different AMD should be ok)
  - catdog 9y ago
    Most likely to generate clicks.
  - igravious 9y ago
    Phoronix likes the clicks?
- makomk 9y ago
  It may not even be a software issue. conftest is the name autoconf uses for various short snippets of code used to test properties of the toolchain and host system, and if I recall correctly some of them generate code that's expected to segfault when run if some guess about the host system is wrong.
- foofloobar 9y ago
  This isn't the case. I see segfaults in multiple tests with Ryzen and none of them are conftest related. The CPU is broken. I don't have Threadripper or Epyc to test.
throw2016 9y ago
At the very least the exact same tests should be run on Intel CPUs. This will isolate the issue. If Intel CPUs report the same errors as some users are reporting this is in extremely bad faith. Phoronix can write 2 articles and spend days on this. Why has he not run the test on Intel yet?
barrkel 9y ago
This is a non-article, an exercise in bias confirmation. Without a control with no segfaults, or a root cause, it's not useful.
- qeternity 9y ago
  In the article (or perhaps the original article that is linked in this one) they explain that they ran the same tests on Intel processors without any issues whatsoever...
  - jfim 9y ago
    Could be an issue with the motherboard, BIOS, or RAM though. If this was repeated across multiple motherboards, CPUs and RAM combinations to exclude the possibility of it being a flaky part, then yes, sure.
  - VThornheart 9y ago
    Except that people are indeed running the same test on Intel systems and getting the same segfaults: https://www.phoronix.com/forums/forum/phoronix/latest-phoronix-articles/967080-ryzen-test-stress-run-make-it-easy-to-cause-segmentation-faults-on-zen-cpus/page10 https://www.phoronix.com/forums/forum/phoronix/latest-phoron...
geococcyxc 9y ago
Everybody should be ignoring this "test" by someone who obviously has no idea what conftest is or does :)
yarg 9y ago
From what I've read so far, he just keeps replicating the issue without really attempting to mitigate it. Does anyone know if he's tried disabling ASLR yet?

93 points by pella 9y ago

similar problem on EPYC https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/6rmq6q/epyc_7551_mining_performance/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/6rmq6q/epyc_7551_minin... https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/6rrbsp/epyc_confirmed_to_suffer_from_the_segfault_issue/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/6rrbsp/epyc_confirmed_...

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
VThornheart 9y ago
The segfaults repro on Intel systems as well with his setup: https://www.phoronix.com/forums/forum/phoronix/latest-phoronix-articles/967080-ryzen-test-stress-run-make-it-easy-to-cause-segmentation-faults-on-zen-cpus/page10 https://www.phoronix.com/forums/forum/phoronix/latest-phoron... The segfaults being seen on that Epyc test are not the fault of the hardware - either that, or they're a problem that is common between Intel and AMD processors somehow.

pmoriarty 9y ago

Should people planning to buy a Ryzen system hold off until this is fixed?

qeternity 9y ago
The tester in the article says he hasn't had this happen on his daily use machine, and that it seems to only happen under very strenuous workloads. Most people should be fine but there's still a risk.
Kenji 9y ago
I wouldn't go for hardware with known flaws like that. You never know what you are vulnerable to. Who knows, maybe someone finds out how you can abuse this flaw with JavaScript or something. It seems to me like AMD bit off more than they can chew.
tscs37 9y ago
personally, I would say yes. I've been happily using my 1700x on my personal machine for months without much issue (except when as noted above, the issue was induced with very very high CPU load, manually and in a controlled manner). Unless you do very CPU heavy work that lasts several minutes or longer (like kernel compiling, chromium compiling, autotools, starting electron apps), especially when you run gentoo (most likely), it should not be an issue. I do a lot of dev work myself, so I do compile often but a short compiler run hasn't ever induced this bug and longer linux kernel builds suffered more from my inadequate cooling solutions rather than the CPU having bugs.
diegoprzl 9y ago
I would wait. I bought a 1800x Ryzen and had some stability problems under Debian Buster which disappeared after a BIOS update, but I'm not compiling large projects continuously nor it has been up for a lot of time (maybe 3 days uptime? Got the new computer two weeks ago.. when it gets to 100+ days uptime I will be happy) Under Windows it worked flawlessly even with the old BIOS.
jryan49 9y ago
Anecdotally, I'm using Windows, haven't had any issues. I also tried running https://github.com/suaefar/ryzen-test https://github.com/suaefar/ryzen-test in a VM for only about an hour at 100% load and had no issues.

sofaofthedamned 9y ago

I have the same with a Kaby Lake laptop btw (XPS 13) where random segfaults happen. This is with the very latest BIOS update from a day or two ago. Modern CPUs suck.

emh68 9y ago
Can we all switch to Xeons and <whatever server CPUs AMD has out now>? Or do those have similar issues?
- dijit 9y ago
  Kaby Lake Xeons exist. Source: I have one in my Precision 5520.
- sofaofthedamned 9y ago
  No idea, but honestly I can't be arsed anymore with new stuff when it's so unreliable. This is from a few minutes ago (the timestamps are hours old, but that's because dmesg timestamps don't take into account sleep time) [Sat Aug 5 13:46:21 2017] ------------[ cut here ]------------ [Sat Aug 5 13:46:21 2017] WARNING: CPU: 0 PID: 16026 at drivers/base/firmware_class.c:1225 _request_firmware+0x51f/0x8a0 [Sat Aug 5 13:46:21 2017] Modules linked in: ccm rfcomm fuse xt_CHECKSUM ipt_MASQUERADE nf_nat_masquerade_ipv4 tun xt_addrtype nf_conntrack_netbios_ns nf_conntrack_broadcast xt_CT ip6t_rpfilter ip6t_REJECT nf_reject_ipv6 ip_set nfnetlink ebtable_nat ebtable_broute ip6table_nat nf_conntrack_ipv6 nf_defrag_ipv6 nf_nat_ipv6 xt_conntrack ip6table_mangle ip6table_raw br_netfilter bridge stp llc overlay ip6table_security iptable_nat nf_conntrack_ipv4 nf_defrag_ipv4 nf_nat_ipv4 nf_nat nf_conntrack libcrc32c iptable_mangle iptable_raw iptable_security ebtable_filter ebtables ip6table_filter ip6_tables cmac bnep sunrpc arc4 uvcvideo videobuf2_vmalloc videobuf2_memops videobuf2_v4l2 videobuf2_core videodev media btusb btrtl snd_soc_skl snd_soc_skl_ipc snd_soc_sst_ipc snd_soc_sst_dsp snd_hda_ext_core dell_wmi wmi_bmof snd_soc_sst_match [Sat Aug 5 13:46:21 2017] tpm_crb snd_hda_codec_hdmi snd_hda_codec_realtek snd_soc_core snd_hda_codec_generic snd_compress snd_pcm_dmaengine ac97_bus iTCO_wdt iTCO_vendor_support hid_multitouch mei_wdt dell_laptop dell_smbios dcdbas intel_rapl x86_pkg_temp_thermal intel_powerclamp coretemp kvm_intel kvm ath10k_pci ath10k_core irqbypass crct10dif_pclmul crc32_pclmul mac80211 ghash_clmulni_intel intel_cstate intel_uncore intel_rapl_perf ath cfg80211 joydev snd_hda_intel snd_hda_codec rtsx_pci_ms snd_hda_core memstick snd_hwdep snd_seq snd_seq_device snd_pcm snd_timer snd i2c_i801 soundcore hci_uart intel_pch_thermal mei_me btbcm idma64 btqca mei shpchp processor_thermal_device btintel intel_soc_dts_iosf intel_lpss_pci bluetooth wmi soc_button_array intel_vbtn tpm_tis tpm_tis_core ecdh_generic pinctrl_sunrisepoint [Sat Aug 5 13:46:21 2017] rfkill int3403_thermal intel_lpss_acpi pinctrl_intel intel_lpss intel_hid int340x_thermal_zone int3400_thermal tpm acpi_als acpi_thermal_rel sparse_keymap kfifo_buf industrialio acpi_pad rtsx_pci_sdmmc mmc_core i915 crc32c_intel i2c_algo_bit drm_kms_helper serio_raw drm nvme nvme_core rtsx_pci i2c_hid video [Sat Aug 5 13:46:21 2017] CPU: 0 PID: 16026 Comm: kworker/u9:0 Not tainted 4.13.0-0.rc3.git1.2.fc27.x86_64 #1 [Sat Aug 5 13:46:21 2017] Hardware name: Dell Inc. XPS 13 9360/0839Y6, BIOS 1.3.7 07/04/2017 [Sat Aug 5 13:46:21 2017] Workqueue: hci0 hci_power_on [bluetooth] [Sat Aug 5 13:46:21 2017] task: ffff9d2bf69e8000 task.stack: ffffb77c07014000 [Sat Aug 5 13:46:21 2017] RIP: 0010:_request_firmware+0x51f/0x8a0 [Sat Aug 5 13:46:21 2017] RSP: 0000:ffffb77c07017c50 EFLAGS: 00010282 [Sat Aug 5 13:46:21 2017] RAX: 000000000000002c RBX: ffffb77c07017d18 RCX: 0000000000000000 [Sat Aug 5 13:46:21 2017] RDX: 0000000000000000 RSI: ffff9d2cff40e118 RDI: ffff9d2cff40e118 [Sat Aug 5 13:46:21 2017] RBP: ffffb77c07017cc0 R08: 0000000000000487 R09: 0000000000000007 [Sat Aug 5 13:46:21 2017] R10: fffff404518d9200 R11: ffffffff94313aed R12: ffff9d2c81d13ae0 [Sat Aug 5 13:46:21 2017] R13: ffffb77c07017d10 R14: ffff9d2c94f424e8 R15: ffff9d2c695de068 [Sat Aug 5 13:46:21 2017] FS: 0000000000000000(0000) GS:ffff9d2cff400000(0000) knlGS:0000000000000000 [Sat Aug 5 13:46:21 2017] CS: 0010 DS: 0000 ES: 0000 CR0: 0000000080050033 [Sat Aug 5 13:46:21 2017] CR2: 000000fd4a1b4b48 CR3: 00000004536d4000 CR4: 00000000003406f0 [Sat Aug 5 13:46:21 2017] Call Trace: [Sat Aug 5 13:46:21 2017] ? snprintf+0x45/0x70 [Sat Aug 5 13:46:21 2017] request_firmware+0x37/0x50 [Sat Aug 5 13:46:21 2017] btusb_setup_qca+0x22d/0x410 [btusb] [Sat Aug 5 13:46:21 2017] ? __pm_runtime_resume+0x5b/0x80 [Sat Aug 5 13:46:21 2017] btusb_open+0x45/0x250 [btusb] [Sat Aug 5 13:46:21 2017] hci_dev_do_open+0x6c/0x590 [bluetooth] [Sat Aug 5 13:46:21 2017] ? try_to_wake_up+0x59/0x470 [Sat Aug 5 13:46:21 2017] hci_power_on+0x4e/0x200 [bluetooth] [Sat Aug 5 13:46:21 2017] ? lock_timer_base+0x81/0xa0 [Sat Aug 5 13:46:21 2017] process_one_work+0x193/0x3c0 [Sat Aug 5 13:46:21 2017] worker_thread+0x4a/0x3a0 [Sat Aug 5 13:46:21 2017] kthread+0x125/0x140 [Sat Aug 5 13:46:21 2017] ? process_one_work+0x3c0/0x3c0 [Sat Aug 5 13:46:21 2017] ? kthread_park+0x60/0x60 [Sat Aug 5 13:46:21 2017] ret_from_fork+0x25/0x30 [Sat Aug 5 13:46:21 2017] Code: 08 48 83 fb 28 74 45 48 8b 8b a0 ee aa 93 e9 e6 fe ff ff 48 c7 c7 a0 ad fa 93 e8 4d 71 2f 00 48 c7 c7 88 15 cf 93 e8 42 86 b6 ff <0f> ff 41 b9 90 ff ff ff e9 06 fd ff ff 48 c7 45 a8 ff ff ff 7f [Sat Aug 5 13:46:21 2017] ---[ end trace ff5be3b6989ab935 ]---

verytrivial 9y ago

In some respects this is vastly better than a once-a-month fault. AMD have a better chance of reproducing it even if, clock speeds being what they are these days, the are a tonne of instructions churning between events.

suenyoj 9y ago

How much money does Intel pay for such articles?

dna_polymerase 9y ago
It's funny, to say the least, how these articles pop up merely days before the 1920x launch. The press just received their Threadrippers a few days ago... Edit: No I'm not saying this is Intel, but it's sad that their release will be overshadowed by this. I really hoped for AMD to finally catch up with Intel because we all could profit from a second big player in the game.
- icelancer 9y ago
  What? Plenty of people are running simple test suites and stress tests on new CPUs to write up. This is nothing out of the ordinary at all.

theincredulousk 9y ago

This seems like a shill article because black box testing makes almost no sense in this situation. These are seg faults not hardware lockups. Maybe get a kernel dump and gdb? You know, debugging.

vancan1ty 9y ago

Note that it appears that a large number of the segfaults which Michael (phoronix) is reporting may be coming from a software issue. In particular, people on the phoronix forums are reporting that conftest segfaults are a known software issue and also one has reported that he was able to reproduce the conftest segfaults on an intel CPU. So not saying that there's not a problem with Ryzen, but it is possible a large number of the errors are false positives arising from a known software issue. I would wait Michael runs the same test on an Intel CPU with no problems to pass judgement.

laydn 9y ago
Agreed. It is a very basic comparison, which should be done before posting the article. I don't understand why he keeps posting these before running the exact same test on different processors (an Intel or even a different AMD should be ok)
- catdog 9y ago
  Most likely to generate clicks.
- igravious 9y ago
  Phoronix likes the clicks?
makomk 9y ago
It may not even be a software issue. conftest is the name autoconf uses for various short snippets of code used to test properties of the toolchain and host system, and if I recall correctly some of them generate code that's expected to segfault when run if some guess about the host system is wrong.
foofloobar 9y ago
This isn't the case. I see segfaults in multiple tests with Ryzen and none of them are conftest related. The CPU is broken. I don't have Threadripper or Epyc to test.

throw2016 9y ago

At the very least the exact same tests should be run on Intel CPUs. This will isolate the issue. If Intel CPUs report the same errors as some users are reporting this is in extremely bad faith. Phoronix can write 2 articles and spend days on this. Why has he not run the test on Intel yet?

barrkel 9y ago

This is a non-article, an exercise in bias confirmation. Without a control with no segfaults, or a root cause, it's not useful.

qeternity 9y ago
In the article (or perhaps the original article that is linked in this one) they explain that they ran the same tests on Intel processors without any issues whatsoever...
- jfim 9y ago
  Could be an issue with the motherboard, BIOS, or RAM though. If this was repeated across multiple motherboards, CPUs and RAM combinations to exclude the possibility of it being a flaky part, then yes, sure.
- VThornheart 9y ago
  Except that people are indeed running the same test on Intel systems and getting the same segfaults: https://www.phoronix.com/forums/forum/phoronix/latest-phoronix-articles/967080-ryzen-test-stress-run-make-it-easy-to-cause-segmentation-faults-on-zen-cpus/page10 https://www.phoronix.com/forums/forum/phoronix/latest-phoron...

geococcyxc 9y ago

Everybody should be ignoring this "test" by someone who obviously has no idea what conftest is or does :)

yarg 9y ago

From what I've read so far, he just keeps replicating the issue without really attempting to mitigate it. Does anyone know if he's tried disabling ASLR yet?