motherboard. I haven't done much troubleshooting of that sourt of
problem, but one thing you might try is some less aggressive settings in
/etc/sysconfig/harddisks.
Jack
On Sat, 2003-11-08 at 05:49, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> I've had problems with my computer for a week or so now, and have been trying to
> diagnose the exact problem. I'm not exactly sure what is the matter, but if I
> relate the symptoms I hope someone will be able to assist me.
>
> Initially I assume the fact that problems started when I began using Mandrake
> 9.2 is purely a coincidence.
>
> Several weeks ago I noticed problems with applications randomly crashing, most
> notably those that ran most often, eg nautilus. Sometimes even my whole system
> would crash and require reboot. After a reboot I would notice that some files
> were just missing (I assume corrupt). Most notably these were icon files, as I
> would have desktop items without icons, but also certain application files would
> be missing/corrupt.
> As my main hard drive was several years old and had been getting noisier I put
> it down to a bad hd and replaced it.
> However even with the new drive I was getting these crashes, and they seemed to
> occur more often. And when a reboot was unavoidable I would reach lilo, but then
> get a message that a CRC check failed and the system was halted. This would
> happen several times in a row, and after leaving the machine off for a while, it
> would happily start and give me several hours before it all went to hell again.
>
> I chated to a few friends and they suggested that perhaps my IDE cables were
> getting old/damaged and needed replacing. Being the cheapest thing to replace I
> did so, and this has not helped.
>
> Sometimes I am logged into a terminal when it 'fails', and I see some sort of
> buffer journal error (can't recall exact words) however sometimes I can still
> type in commands, but am returned an I/O error and no programs will run - and I
> can't open a new connection to my machine, I can't open a new virtual terminal
> in screen, can't su to root, or even ls the directory; however last time it
> happened I could cd between directories, and btlaunchmanycurses was running in a
> virtual terminal and kept going, with the screen updating even.
>
> Another possible source of errors was my RAM (3 sticks of 256MB pc133 sdram). I
> installed memtest86 and tested my ram in several different patterns (all in,
> only 1 in, 2 in, mixing around slots). memtest86 returned only 1 error when all
> 3 sticks were in - noting the error to be at 318MB - as this is more than 256,
> and less than 512 I thought it was a good guess my middle stick of ram was at
> fault, and pulled it. Tests on the last 2 sticks usually revealed no errors..
> but now and again did.
> So I borrowed a stick of working 64MB pc100 sdram from work (my mobo supports
> this) and ran my system for several hours.
> I worked the system hard, my swap was on the go consistantly, and I was
> switching between applications, playing video files, and had firebird and
> thunderbird open just to keep things active. While I received no immediate
> errors I decided that I would run fsck on my partitions.
>
> I switched runlevel into single mode, and ran fsck.reiserfs on a partition on my
> brand new hard drive, and it failed with:
>
> hda: dma_intr: status=0x51 {DriveReady SeekComplete Error}
> hda: dma_intr: status=0x40 {UncorrectableError} , LBAsect=28151643, sector=6217496
>
> I then ran fsck.ext3 -c /dev/hdb1 (this is a new-ish drive that has never seen
> problems).
>
> During the check it gave me:
>
> hdb: dma_intr: status=0x51 {DriveReady SeekComplete Error}
> hdb: dma_intr: status=0x84 {DriveStatusError BadCRC}
>
> This CRC error reminds me of the CRC error when it would fail to boot up. So I
> am thinking that maybe my ram is not at fault, nor my hard drives, but that my
> motherboard is.
>
> Perhaps the IDE channels are dying, or the ram slots, or some other part of the
> mobo that I just don't know enough to be able to understand the errors.
>
> I don't know how to really test my motherboard, and I have pretty much got to
> the limit of my ability to test for problems.
>
> Can anyone offer me any advice of how to test for mobo problems? Do my errors
> sound like anything you recognise?
>
> Oh.. and no, I don't have an LG cdrom drive ;). Just a pioneer dvdrom and a
> plextor cdrw.
>
> -------------------------------------------------
> Everyone should have http://www.freedom2surf.net/
>
>
> ______________________________________________________________________
> Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft?
> Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
--
Jack Coates
Monkeynoodle: A Scientific Venture...
Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft?
Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
