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Darn AMD Chip - ARGH!
kingpinofdisks
Member Posts: 25 ■□□□□□□□□□
in CCNP
Old PC: AMD Athlon-X2 4800+, 4gb RAM, Win2k3-R2-x64 SP2, all un-necessary services turned off. Dyn
On the old PC, I have done everything possible to run the MPLS TE 2.5 lab from gns3-labs.
No matter what I try, or how I idlepc the suckers to death, or which version of the 3640 IOS I use, or which version of dynagen/dynamips I use - dynamips will crash.
I cannot run more than 2 7200, or 3 3640, or 4 2691 routers in GNS3 or Dynagen. Anything more starts to cause severe unstability. My laptop (Core2-Duo 1.8ghz, Vista Basic, 4gb RAM) can run the mpls_te_2.5 lab with 50% CPU / 1.3gb RAM utilization on average. It pretty much kills the laptop, but it runs and doesn't crash.
Google searches have led me to believe that dynamips doesn't always play nice with the AMD Athlon + Windows. Seems to like the AMD Athlon + Linux is better. Ain't gonna happen - I love making linux appliances, but hate using linux for desktop use. I tried the dynamips linux boot CD, but couldn't get it to load an OS.
I give up. I just spent the night at Fry's Electronics (no sleep, played texas hold'em all night with the people behind me in line, ran in with crowd into store at 5 am), and spent $226 on an Intel Core-2 Q8200, ECS mboard, and 4gb of Crucial memory. I get a $30 rebate on the memory, making my total $196 after the rebate check. That is a HUGE sum of $$$ for me, hopefully worth it. I just ripped out the old AMD mboard and installed the new one. I ran thru the usual disaster-recovery steps (you MCSE types know what I am talking about) so I didn't even have to re-install my OS.
I have the lab running as I type this - woohoo!!!! CPU hovering around 31-38%, and that includes 2 VMWare instances running also. The 3 Dynamips instances are using a total of 1.4gb of RAM. Sweet!!!!!!!!!
=> list
Name Type State Server Console
P1 3640 running localhost:7200 2011
P2 3640 running localhost:7200 2012
PE1 3640 running localhost:7200 2013
PE2 3640 running localhost:7200 2014
PE3 3640 running localhost:7201 2015
PE4 3640 running localhost:7201 2016
VRF1-CE1 3640 running localhost:7201 2017
VRF2-CE1 3640 running localhost:7201 2018
VRF1-CE2 3640 running localhost:7202 2019
VRF2-CE2 3640 running localhost:7202 2020
New PC: Intel Core2-Quad 2.33ghz, 4gb RAM, Win2k3-R2-x64 SP2 (not-for-resale edition - I love a free OS), 2 NICs, 2 500gb SATA2 drives, DVD burner, and a Nvidia Geforce 8800GTS running 2 monitors (1 19" CRT, 1 22" flatscreen).
The morale: AMD rocks most of the time, but for maximum compatability, the Intel chip family is going to be a bit more stable running Windows + Dynamips. At least, that is IMHO.
On the old PC, I have done everything possible to run the MPLS TE 2.5 lab from gns3-labs.
No matter what I try, or how I idlepc the suckers to death, or which version of the 3640 IOS I use, or which version of dynagen/dynamips I use - dynamips will crash.
I cannot run more than 2 7200, or 3 3640, or 4 2691 routers in GNS3 or Dynagen. Anything more starts to cause severe unstability. My laptop (Core2-Duo 1.8ghz, Vista Basic, 4gb RAM) can run the mpls_te_2.5 lab with 50% CPU / 1.3gb RAM utilization on average. It pretty much kills the laptop, but it runs and doesn't crash.
Google searches have led me to believe that dynamips doesn't always play nice with the AMD Athlon + Windows. Seems to like the AMD Athlon + Linux is better. Ain't gonna happen - I love making linux appliances, but hate using linux for desktop use. I tried the dynamips linux boot CD, but couldn't get it to load an OS.
I give up. I just spent the night at Fry's Electronics (no sleep, played texas hold'em all night with the people behind me in line, ran in with crowd into store at 5 am), and spent $226 on an Intel Core-2 Q8200, ECS mboard, and 4gb of Crucial memory. I get a $30 rebate on the memory, making my total $196 after the rebate check. That is a HUGE sum of $$$ for me, hopefully worth it. I just ripped out the old AMD mboard and installed the new one. I ran thru the usual disaster-recovery steps (you MCSE types know what I am talking about) so I didn't even have to re-install my OS.
I have the lab running as I type this - woohoo!!!! CPU hovering around 31-38%, and that includes 2 VMWare instances running also. The 3 Dynamips instances are using a total of 1.4gb of RAM. Sweet!!!!!!!!!
=> list
Name Type State Server Console
P1 3640 running localhost:7200 2011
P2 3640 running localhost:7200 2012
PE1 3640 running localhost:7200 2013
PE2 3640 running localhost:7200 2014
PE3 3640 running localhost:7201 2015
PE4 3640 running localhost:7201 2016
VRF1-CE1 3640 running localhost:7201 2017
VRF2-CE1 3640 running localhost:7201 2018
VRF1-CE2 3640 running localhost:7202 2019
VRF2-CE2 3640 running localhost:7202 2020
New PC: Intel Core2-Quad 2.33ghz, 4gb RAM, Win2k3-R2-x64 SP2 (not-for-resale edition - I love a free OS), 2 NICs, 2 500gb SATA2 drives, DVD burner, and a Nvidia Geforce 8800GTS running 2 monitors (1 19" CRT, 1 22" flatscreen).
The morale: AMD rocks most of the time, but for maximum compatability, the Intel chip family is going to be a bit more stable running Windows + Dynamips. At least, that is IMHO.