kernel crash on Intel(R) Xeon(TM) CPU 2.66GHz 4-cpus machine

[Andrea Puglisi]

> OK, one thing left to investigate. Just to be sure, how long have you run the 
> test? It's about 2h for a single step.

It took about 30 minutes to perform all tests, then it started it again 
and I quit it (I thought it was a infinite loop). Should I do it many 
times?

> It's a HyperThreading processor. It's *seen* as 2 processors / CPU but in 
> fact it's just useless in the majority of situation. We ended up disabling it 
> in the BIOS for ours...

what does it mean exactly? if I disable it, does it mean I lose 
computational power? 2 processors instead of 4 is of course worst, but if 
two of them are only virtual, then the total power (number of operation 
per clock tick) should remain similar, am I right?
>
> Things to try now:
> - Disable HyperThreading
> - Disable one CPU => You end up with only one CPU
> - Try again your simulation.

Now I disabled HyperThreading, but I could not disable one cpu (at least 
on the bios setup). Therefore now my kernel has recognized two processors. 
I've just launched two simulations. Let's see what happens.

> Then:
> - Remove all devices you don't need. Keep only one disk for example.
> - Run simulation again.

Then I will try this too.

Thanks a lot!!

  A.