ASL - Sovereign 3860 Tech Notes

	BIOS setting To maintain low noise operation, always set Fan Speed Control Modes to 3-pin/Server in the BIOS Hardware Monitor section. All chassis and processor fans are monitored in real time under Linux using the included utility (superodoctor). If the system has 4GB of memory or greater, Discrete MTRR Allocation must be enabled in the BIOS Memory Cache section. Otherwise, system performance will be reduced. If the system has 8GB of memory or greater, discrete MTRR allocation will only work with BIOS revision 1.2a or higher. Earlier BIOS revision will lock up the system during post. To obtain the BIOS update, please send an Email request to techsuppport@aslab.com. Hyper-Threading Hyper-Threading is a technology found in the Intel® Xeon™ processors. Using Hyper-Threading, a single Hyper-Threading enabled processor can simultaneously process two threads of code, improving the performance of multi-threaded code running on a single processor platform. In essence, Hyper-Threading Technology partitions a single processor into two logical processors. Because Hyper-Threading might reduce the performance of certain application significantly, this feature is disabled by default. ASL highly recommends that one should spend some times to benchmark the application(s) running with and without Hyper-Threading first. If time does not permit, Hyper-Threading should be left disabled. In general, Hyper-Threading works best in the server environment. To enable Hyper-Threading, perform the following steps: Enable Hyper-Threading under the Advanced->Processor Features menu in the BIOS. Add the kernel parameter acpismp=force to the Linux boot loader (LILO/GRUB). If LILO is used, it is necessary to run lilo after making the change to /etc/lilo.conf. When Hyper-Threading is enabled, the BIOS and Linux will report a total of four processors in a dual processor system. Red Hat Linux (32-bit version) To ensure platform stability, always use ASL 2.4 kernel. Do not use the base kernel that comes with Red Hat distributions. These kernels have out of dated device drivers that compromise system stability and functionality. To reinstall the operating system, use the ASL customized CD set. These CD are the Red Hat original CD updated with ASL latest kernel. It includes additional drivers to support the latest 3Ware/Marvell SATA controllers. Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 (32-bit) To reinstall the operating system, always use the ASL device driver CD (only included on systems purchased with RHEL) when prompted. Otherwise, system stability will be compromised due to the buggy and obsolete drivers provided in the Red Hat kernels. By default, the Red Hat installer uses the older megaraid driver on the SR model. This driver is obsolete and unstable on the LSI MegaRAID 320-X controllers. After the installation is completed, it is necessary to switch to the newer driver, megaraid2. Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 (64-bit) The 64-bit edition of RHEL3 is not supported on the Nocona platforms due to stability issue. Until Red Hat provides a working kernel that does not crash on large memory, ASL does not recommend using it. External USB Floppy/CD/DVD An external USB floppy drive (FD-IOMG-USB-EXT) is required to update motherboard BIOS. Unless network installation is available, an external CDROM or DVDROM reader is required to reinstall the operating system. A DVDROM reader is required when using SuSE Linux 9.1 Professional.

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