I'm posting this for archival. I had trouble finding references to this
problem in the archives or just about anywhere else on the Internet. So,
hopefully, this will save some poor Dell customer the pain next time.

SYSTEM
OpenBSD 2.9 on a Dell Poweredge 350. Fresh FTP install with no patches yet.

SYMPTOMS
Had recurring problem (roughly once per day) with this server hanging. No
console response. No I/O on the NIC. Power cycle was required each time to
recover. There were no suspicious log entries and no core files.

WORKAROUND
This server was ordered with 1GB of RAM. I removed half the RAM and it's
been solid now for about 24 days.

MORE INFO:
I found a small reference to this in the newsgroup: mailing.openbsd.tech.

>From: chuck (chuckYerkes.com)
>Subject: Re: Getting 2.6 (snapshot) installed...
>Newsgroups: mailing.openbsd.tech
>Date: 1999/11/17
> ---[snip]---
> Too much RAM (i386). Brad's running a Gig of ram.
> Now, I'm no PC expert (segments are for worms, and it's got that
> stupid stupid interrupt crap and a BIOS from 1980). What are the
> problems with 1 - 2 Gig of RAM. Is it only PCs (the machines I have
> are all low RAM machines, firewalls don't need it so much).
> What needs to be changed to get around this limit, as 1-2 Gig
> hosts become commonplace.
> Work around: use less RAM.
> ---[snip]---

Thanks chuckyerkes.com.

--ack

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