John, I usually don't pay attention to messages without a subject line because they don't tell anything...
John Lichter wrote: > I know this isn't an emc problem but has anyone seen it and were you > able to do something about it? Often but not always when I start my > computer I get a screen full of stratup or boot stuff. the last two > lines are as follows. > > [ ---13.342425] ---[ end trace ca 143223eefdc828 ]--- > [ 13.342481] Kernel panic - not syncing: attempted to kill the idle task! > The problem with previous 2 lines is that they don't tell much. What would be important to know is the previous (few) lines. Since "the numbers" are small, I'm assuming it's early into bootup process unless your system is "super fast". For comparison my "classic kubuntu" with processor : 0 vendor_id : GenuineIntel cpu family : 15 model : 2 model name : Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 2.53GHz stepping : 7 cpu MHz : 1909.563 cache size : 512 KB ... bogomips : 3823.04 does not even have numbers in that range so I cannot compare it to my dmesg directly: [ 0.000000] PID hash table entries: 2048 (order: 11, 8192 bytes) [ 0.000000] Detected 1909.563 MHz processor. [ 62.288243] Console: colour VGA+ 80x25 [ 62.288251] console [tty0] enabled but you can compare it to your dmesg from a good bootup. That might give you an idea at what point "bad bootup" happens. Some of those messages end up in dmesg file under /var/log. That message gets rotated so you might see the "crashed" one as /var/log/dmesg.0 or some such. It's possible that some peripheral causes kernel to crash during loading a driver. I would also check log files under /var/log. messages, kern.log, syslog, and udev for any errors or warnings. Check log files often or any time you suspect problems with hardware or the OS. But then again, as others have suggested, memory, chipset, and CPU are high on priority list for kernel to bootup successfully. You might have problem with that. Noisy or out of specs power supply might be a problem also. Troubleshooting motherboard is difficult without schepatics and scope etc. Based on your description it's possible that one of the components needs to warm up in order to function. Freeze spray might help you find that out. Electrolytic caps close to CPU for voltage regulation are frequent culprits. I had to replace one motherboard few months ago because of Linux server frequent reboots. It turned out that caps around the CPU were all "puffed up", i.e. they let smoke get out. You can tell that by their top being open and not flat. > Then a flashing cursor sits on the next line. > So far I just reset. Sometimes I have to reset 2 or 3 times. Then it > starts Unubtu and life goes on. This is a linux only computer,no windows. Makes no difference. Windog cannot poison a PC to become unusable. > This is not a drastic problem for me so don't loose any sleep over it. > But if someone knows what is up I would like to know. Thanks. John > Good luck, -- Rafael ------------------------------------------------------------------------- This SF.Net email is sponsored by the Moblin Your Move Developer's challenge Build the coolest Linux based applications with Moblin SDK & win great prizes Grand prize is a trip for two to an Open Source event anywhere in the world http://moblin-contest.org/redirect.php?banner_id=100&url=/ _______________________________________________ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users