🚀 go-pugleaf

Justine Humphry wrote:
> 
> In article <839385645snx@snafu.apana.org.au>, guyv@snafu.apana.org.au (Guy
> van Baalen) wrote:
> 
> > I'm seeing similar symptoms, altho not as reqular as yourself - my main
> > system can stay up for about 20-21 days, then go thru 2-3 days of system
> > freezes, with varying time intervals between freezes (5 minutes to 10 hours).
> 
> Odd, you are the second person that has responded with similar problems -
> maybe it's not as unusual as I at first thought.
> 
> >
> > Can I ask some little questions?
> >
> > What brand PC & what type of processor are you using?
> 
> It a Moebius 486/66DX with 24mb of RAM - the CDROM drive is a sound
> blaster panasonic (sbpcd), I have bought a serial card with two fast
> 16550A ports - I can't remember the brand off hand but it was one which
> was compatible with linux (I chose one out of the serial howto guide
> before purchasing) likewise the ethernet card is listed as compatible. But
> the problem is not related to any of the peripherals because I have
> removed all of them to identify the problem and it still occurs.
> 
> >
> > Do you have any dial-in users on your system? If so, are you using any
> > serial hardware?
> 
> I did have - before this problem occured - now a friend is carrying them
> for me until I resolve this problem.
> 
> >
> > I've followed a remarkably similar fault-finding process to yourself,
> > concentrating on memory, but no joy yet.
> 
> I still think it must be memory related. About 2 months ago I put in a
> spare 4mb of RAM into my second memory slot - at the stage I was running
> only 8mb of RAM. I experienced terrible problems from then - I couldn't
> compile - I'd get errors - finally my filesystem got trashed completely. I
> removed the 4mb which must of been flaky and bought 16mb new and then
> completely started from scratch by reinstalling and reformatting my hard
> drive to make sure there was no lingering problems. For a little while all
> was fine - but then this mysterious hanging started to happen although it
> doesn't happen in DOS.
> 
> >
> > I don't suspect a malicious user, as the box only runs SL/IP accounts -
> > the only shell account on the system is my own.
> >
> No, it doesn't seem possible from my end really - these problems have
> persisted through many reinstalls of linux and I have been offline for
> this time.
> 
> Good luck with your problems - if you have added any RAM lately - try
> taking it out and testing it although I'm sure you would have already
> tried this.
> 
> Cheers Justine
Howdy Justine,
	here's my experience on this.  About 18 months ago I helped setup  an
ISP here in Melb.  Originally it was based on a 486DX2-66 system running
an Intel overdrive CPU.  It had 16Mb of RAM, SBPCD, QIC-150 tape drive
and some other stuff but basically just a reused PC.

	Things were fine for a while but then a drive decided to implant the
heads 2mm into the disk :-( and finally the motherboard protected the 
power fuse buy frying its self durring a power surge.  Anyway the basics
were that the system was fine until the new hardware was purchased.

	The guy running the ISP went out and bought 2 IBM PC clones to run
Linux on.  They were identical in that they had 16Mb of RAM, DX2-66 cpu
and some generic lan card.  We then had all sorts of trouble with them
only to find that they were running AMD cpu's re-badged as IBM-BLUE
chips.  I had already stressed the need to but "quality" gear but he
liked the price of this stuff.  After returning the boxes for CPU
replacement they seemed to run fairly well, but there were a few funny
crashes.

	After that he decided to upgrade the main box to a Pentium with SCSI
disks.  So after going through 2 suppliers he finally bought one that
had a good M/board and an Intel CPU.  However the CDROM wouldn't run
with the setup untill it went back to the shop for a few days, a bit
suss. I thought.  Eventually the system was up and running but it had
the  random crash problems.

	This guy was most un-impressed with Linux and to fix the problem ended
up buying a DEC Alpha Pentium machine ( or somthing like that ) pre
installed with BSD, i think.  By this time I had dropped out of the
scene a bit, but after that things were fine.

	I still believe that the random hangs were hardware problems, maybe not
conflicts with IRQ's, DMA's or memory addresses but something to do with
buses or even BIOS control.  So after reading all this crap I guess I
should suggest something to possibly help.

	What I would do is set the machine up to a very basic system or at
least as it was when things were OK.  Then try to produce the fault, if
it is not there then replace 1 piece of equipment till the fault
re-appears.  If you've tried this and the fault is still there then it
must be in what ever is common to both setups, ie. the M/board, disks,
controllers etc.

	The next thing I'd try is to set up the BIOS to the most basic running
system.  Run maximum wait states on all devices and drop the ISA bus
speed down to the lowest speed.  Also turning of the caches will help
here.  Now to repeat the tests, try to get the fault to re-appear, if
not then alter each setting till it comes back.  If it is still there
then look at the controllers, etc.  Last of all you may have to check
the CPU and even the chip set chips.  One thing I have found is that any
chip in a socket will work loose over time, so re-seat all chips in the
M/board, just firmly press each one back into its socket.

	Failling all this I'd try each part in another PC, starting with the
disks.  Swap them over, alter the BIOS setup to reflect disks and see
what happens.  I know that all this will take tons of time but that's
the nature of the job.

	Hope this helps,

	Simon.
-- 

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| Simon
Wing-Tang                                                         |
| Systems Administrator              " If at first you don't
succeed....  |
| Telstra Learning                     use a bigger hammer !
"            |
|
swingtan@vttsvic1.telecom.com.au                                       
|
| PH:
613-9295-4223                                                       |

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