On 2012-06-04, ted....@comcast.net <ted....@comcast.net> wrote: > > This morning (before I came to work), I noticed the system wasn't > responding.B I went to the basement, got out my really old laptop as a serial > console, and noticed the system was giving a "ddb>" prompt. > > Just for kicks, I reboo ted, and at some point after the networking comes up, > the system paniced and gave the "ddb>" prompt again (i can't recall the error > - still at work).B I have been doing some googling in my free time, but could > not find anything to help me with the question below. > > Anyway, my stupid question:B This is almost certainly a hardware problem, > right?B A dying disk, or something like that?
Could be various reasons, hardware or software. Ideally leave the serial console connected so you capture any output before the system enters ddb (if this is not possible then at least do "show panic"). Also get ps, trace, and "show registers" might be useful. > I am just wondering before I invest a lot of time/effort in trying to fix the > system. It is probably worth updating to 5.1 before spending time on it, in case it's a kernel bug which has since been fixed.
