[wplug] Machine is locking up without a trace

[Ryan W. Frenz]

> Any chance it's related to
> Power Management?  That age is a prime candidate for that period of time
> when things weren't really stable from a HW / PM standpoint (like the
> Intel GX chipset perhaps?)

I had a similar problem on an IBM laptop of similar age...and it ended
up being ACPI -- I just disabled it and didn't lock up again.  In my
experience APM has been much more stable, at least w.r.t. IBMs.


On Tue, 23 Nov 2004 14:21:09 -0500, Vanco, Don <don.vanco at agilysys.com> wrote:
> >-----Original Message-----
> 
> 
> >From: wplug-bounces+don.vanco=agilysys.com at wplug.org
> >[mailto:wplug-bounces+don.vanco=agilysys.com at wplug.org] On
> >Behalf Of wmoran at potentialtech.com
> >Sent: Tuesday, November 23, 2004 1:21 PM
> >To: Scott F. Kiesling
> >Cc: wplug at wplug.org
> >Subject: Re: [wplug] Machine is locking up without a trace
> >
> >
> >Quoting "Scott F. Kiesling" <kiesling at pitt.edu>:
> >
> >> Folks I have a mysterious problem which I think is
> >> hardware-based but I can't find the problem. I've looked
> >> around but haven't a lead.
> >>
> >> Running Gentoo, Kernel 2.6.7 on a Dell Inspiron 5000 (~4.5
> >> years old).
> >>
> >> In short, the machine just stops. This happened first while
> >> running X, but it has also happened when an X session has
> >> not been started.
> >>
> >> I've looked in /var/log/messages and the X logs but haven't
> >> found anything at all.
> >>
> >> e2fsck and reiserfsck show that my fs are OK.
> >>
> >> I'd appreciate any suggestions on where to look next.
> >>
> >> And yes, I have backed things up.
> >
> >These kind of issues are always a pain!
> >
> >Have you tried memtest86 to ensure the RAM is good?  I
> >recommend running
> >it all night, as I've seen dodgy RAM that will pass sometimes, and fail
> >others.
> >
> >There's also a program called cpuburn that will stress your CPU to see
> >if it can make things fail.
> >
> >Aside from that, you may have to go on an Easter Egg Hunt (i.e. remove
> >parts, test to see if it's still freezing up, rinse and repeat)
>         See also cerberus (http://sourceforge.net/projects/va-ctcs/)  I
> also have a bootable tool called Check-It Pro that has proven on at
> least one occasion to find bad memory where other "native OS" based
> tests could not.
> 
> I would:
> Look to see if chipsets are really hot
> Check all cards / chips for proper seating; falling that
> remove cards one at a time (including DIMMS)
> 
> ...given the age of the box it may be that it's got a part going bad.
> Have you parsed the entire log for issues?  Any chance it's related to
> Power Management?  That age is a prime candidate for that period of time
> when things weren't really stable from a HW / PM standpoint (like the
> Intel GX chipset perhaps?)
> 
> Don
> 
> 
> 
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-- 
Ryan W. Frenz
rfrenz at gmail.com