Bug in Via Nehemiah C3 stepping 4 CPU?

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.chips (More info?)

Hello folks,

I was wondering if anyone has seen this problem, and whether there's a
work around (microcode update?):

We have two [seemingly] identical embedded processor boards that use VIA's
1.0GHz Nehemiah C3 CPU. One has no issues running win2k, the other will
not run the 16 bit application "wowexec.exe" - the error "NTVDM has
generated errors and will be closed by windows" occurs.

Upon closer examination, the failing board has a stepping 4 processor, and
the working board has a stepping 8 processor

Running Microsoft's debugger reveals the following:

>Symbol search path is: SRV*C:\symbols*http://msdl.microsoft.com/download/symbols;C:\symbols
>
>Microsoft (R) Windows Debugger Version 6.3.0017.0
>Copyright (c) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
>
>*** wait with pending attach
>Symbol search path is: SRV*C:\symbols*http://msdl.microsoft.com/download/symbols;C:\symbols
>Executable search path is:
>ModLoad: 0f000000 0f0a1000 C:\WINNT\system32\ntvdm.exe
>ModLoad: 77f80000 77ffd000 C:\WINNT\system32\ntdll.dll
>ModLoad: 7c570000 7c628000 C:\WINNT\system32\KERNEL32.dll
>ModLoad: 7c2d0000 7c332000 C:\WINNT\system32\ADVAPI32.dll
>ModLoad: 77d30000 77da1000 C:\WINNT\system32\RPCRT4.DLL
>ModLoad: 77f40000 77f7e000 C:\WINNT\system32\GDI32.dll
>ModLoad: 77e10000 77e75000 C:\WINNT\system32\USER32.DLL
>ModLoad: 732e0000 73305000 C:\WINNT\system32\shim.dll
>ModLoad: 23000000 23056000 C:\WINNT\AppPatch\AcLayers.DLL
>ModLoad: 69b00000 69b07000 C:\WINNT\system32\NTVDMD.DLL
>ModLoad: 0ffc0000 10000000 C:\WINNT\system32\WOW32.dll
>ModLoad: 782f0000 78535000 C:\WINNT\system32\SHELL32.dll
>ModLoad: 70a70000 70ad5000 C:\WINNT\system32\SHLWAPI.dll
>ModLoad: 78000000 78045000 C:\WINNT\system32\msvcrt.dll
>ModLoad: 71710000 71794000 C:\WINNT\system32\COMCTL32.dll
>ModLoad: 76b30000 76b6e000 C:\WINNT\system32\comdlg32.dll
>ModLoad: 77820000 77827000 C:\WINNT\system32\VERSION.dll
>ModLoad: 759b0000 759b6000 C:\WINNT\system32\LZ32.DLL
>(378.374): Access violation - code c0000005 (!!! second chance !!!)
>eax=00000000 ebx=0f095bc4 ecx=00004212 edx=00000000 esi=00020000 edi=fffdffff
>eip=0f03e255 esp=0105fc40 ebp=0105ff40 iopl=0 nv up ei pl zr na po nc
>cs=001b ss=0023 ds=0023 es=0023 fs=003b gs=0000 efl=00000246
>ntvdm!FastLeavePm+0x35:
>0f03e255 cf iretd

Has anybody else had problems with the stepping 4 C3 processors?

Thanks for any info!

Best Regards,

Jay Walling
Diagnostic Engineer
jwalling@comarkcorp.com
Comark Corporation
93 West St.
Medfield, MA 02052
http://www.comarkcorp.com

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.chips (More info?)

The little lost angel <a?n?g?e?l@lovergirl.lrigrevol.moc.com> wrote:
> On Thu, 22 Jul 2004 07:20:46 -0400, Jay <jwalling@comREMOVEarkcorp.com> wrote:
>
>>We have two [seemingly] identical embedded processor boards that use VIA's
>>1.0GHz Nehemiah C3 CPU. One has no issues running win2k, the other will
>>not run the 16 bit application "wowexec.exe" - the error "NTVDM has
>>generated errors and will be closed by windows" occurs.
>
> I'm not sure about these things, but have you tried running
> some memory tests or swapping their RAM modules? I've seldom
> see actual processor failures, but memory quite often.

Always a good idea, but a repeatable error usually
is software not hardware. Only if the software exec
history is identical is bad memory cell likely.

Ms-Win2k is "complicated" enough that even running
`copy CMD.EXE c.EXE` or launching & killing an app
will change memory usage (page allocation).

-- Robert

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.chips (More info?)

Jay <jwalling@comremovearkcorp.com> wrote:
> It's not. We're now up to 7 boards - four have stepping 8 and
> all work, three of them are stepping 4 and all fail. Pretty
> conclusive, I should think. I've examined the rest of the

Yep, that sounds very conclusive of some systemic problem.

> PCI devices using a PCI utility to check the device IDs and
> revision level of the chips, and all 7 boards are identical

Check the configuration space to make sure the same values
got written to the Northbrige (&southbridge, if any). `lspci`
under Linux IIRC.

> The only conclusion I can thing of is that the BIOS needs
> updating; maybe for a microcode update, but according to the

Maybe, if the C3 uses loadable microcode. Intel definitely
does after their Pentium FDIV fiasco. I'm not sure about
AMD or the others.

> soldered onto the board. Does anyone know if VIA publishes
> errata for their CPU chips like Intel does? If they do, does
> it require an NDA? I was unable to find any on their site.

Sorry, I don't know but would be interested in the answer.

-- Robert

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.chips (More info?)

I 've got the same pb as you
My PC is a laptop with a via C3 nehemiah at 1 GHz. My OS is a win2k SP4
and every ntvdm software crashes
I've perhaps found an explainationto our problem on microsoft site
http://support.microsoft.com/defau [...] #appliesto
On the CD given with the PC I've got a patch file (ntvdm.exe) but only for
win 2k, win2k SP2, win2k SP3 but not for SP4
Can you help where to find this file!!!

Sorry for my english