On Tue, 30 Nov 1999, Gregg Carrier wrote:
> Well, my Linux system has hung three more times since my original post. First
> was in Netscape again. Second, I had Netscape open to a page and was trying to
> configure my sound card. I had a Konsole open and was doing a:
> pnpdump -c > /etc/isapnp.conf
> as many posting in various newsgroups suggest isapnp as my path to
> configuring my sound card on Linux. As soon as I hit enter in Konsole, total
> hang. I tried changing windows, ctl-alt-del, everything. Waited for a long
> time with no disk activity and shut off power.
>
> Now, the isapnp thing has me wondering. I had NO problems with Linux-Mandrake
> for the first month and a half of its existence other than the zillions of
> newbie configuration difficulties everyone has. The point is, it didn't crash.
> Just recently I started screwing around with this isapnp stuff in attemts to
> get sound up and running. Today, suddenly, it starts to crash.
>
> I tried the pnpdump -c > /etc/isapnp.conf again from the command line. Same
> results. This time I was able to switch to other logins, but not to actually
> log in. I was able to ctl-c out of the process without shutting down as well. I
> looked in /etc and there is a isapnp.conf listing with nothing in it.
> Absolutely empty file. There's also a isapnp.gone file with a bunch of
> commented out lines.
>
> Questions:
> Does this hanging problem with pnpdump point a finger at PnP hardware as a
> possible culprit for my ever-crashing machine?
Not specificly pnp hardware, but yes hardware is what it's pointing to
> I noticed when the system is booting now, one of the things it does is say:
> Setting up ISA PNP Devices
> which may very well be a result of my tinkerings with the isapnp stuff
> according to various suggestions. Does a fresh L-M 6.1 install say this at boot
> time or must I have added this post-install?
Fresh install, no. it does an "if [ -f /etc/isapnp.conf ]; do", it's
detecting the blank file
> Can a flaky sound card make a system hang and cause the kind of constant daily
> crashes I get in Windows (Linux is MUCH better in this regard...flawless until
> today)? I only ask because Linux was rock-solid before I began tinkering
> extensively with sound card setup and has been weird since.
In order of magnitude,
Heat,
Bad bios setup (if you've been tinkering),
blown hardware.
> After crashing, the times I had to interrupt power, a message appeared when the
> system was checking the root filesystem. Same message each time:
> Deleted inode 94213 has zero dtime FIXED
> Does that mean anything? Same number and everything each time.
cause it's the same file thats trying tobe written to when you power off,
/etc/isapnp.conf
> If I knew this was a piece of hardware and knew which one, I'd replace it in a
> second. This system is really crashy under Windows, and most of its hangs there
> seem to happen during screen repaints, changing to other windows and such.
> Most, but not all. Sometimes it hangs when you're just typing or doing nothing
> at all. This is really frustrating and all I really want is some systematic way
> to rule out possibilities.
Pull the case, yank the sound card and grap the house fan to suck air off
the board.
now stress test while you sleep,
Setup,
cd /usr/src/linux; make mrproper && make oldconfig && make dep
Stress test,
while : ; do (make clean && make bzImage) ; done
> Thanks if you've made it this far! Any help much appreciated!
Yeah quit running pnpdump and it seems your problem will go away ;) j/k
> Gregg
>
--
MandrakeSoft http://www.mandrakesoft.com/
--Axalon
