RE: Hardware diagnostics
Scott Gifford wrote: I suspect a hardware problem, Can anybody recommend a good hardware diagnostic or burn-in program? I have used memtest86 I also use and recommend memtest86. It tests your CPU, memory, and everything between them and your keyboard and display to a greater or lesser degree. It usually finds bad memory on the first pass, but I once tested a machine (Intel D945GNTLKR) that was marginal and took many hours to fail. http://www.memtest86.com/ You should download a bootable CD version of the diagnostic utility for your system hard drive, burn it, and run it. For example: http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/support/downloads/seatools/ http://support.wdc.com/product/download.asp?groupid=502sid=30lang=en You should get yourself a power supply tester and use it. I have this one: http://www.antec.com/Believe_it/product.php?id=ODk= I've used CPU burn-in to stress test CPU's and thermal solutions: http://users.bigpond.net.au/cpuburn/ You will need software to display the CPU temperature. I use retail motherboards, and they typically include a utility. I've used Motherboard Monitor in the past: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motherboard_Monitor If you have a bootable Windows partition/ drive, I've used SISoftware Sandra to benchmark and burn-in entire machines: http://www.sisoftware.co.uk/ HTH, David -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: Hardware diagnostics
On Tue, 2009-05-19 at 23:37 -0400, Scott Gifford wrote: Can anybody recommend a good hardware diagnostic or burn-in program? I have used memtest86 and will try that, but ideally I'd like to stress test more of the system than just the memory. Something that can run on Debian Etch while the machine is live is ideal, or something that can be run from a boot CD. Free is preferred (of course), but any suggestions are welcome. I haven't used it myself, but some folks in my local LUG have recommended Breakin: http://www.advancedclustering.com/software/breakin.html It runs from a CD or USB key and is mostly open-source (except for one library provided by Intel and one provided by AMD). They say they've built it from source on Red Hat/CentOS 5, Debian Lenny, and Ubuntu Hardy. They also provide a script if you want to build it yourself. Also, if anybody has a suggestion of what might fix an Etch system that's freezing up periodically with nothing in the logs, those suggestions are welcome too. :-) What's the CPU and chipset? I've experienced freezes like that (nothing in the logs, no kernel panic -- just ... stops working), but the problem seems to be specific to my CPU and chipset. -- Michael M. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: Hardware diagnostics
On Tue, May 19, 2009 at 11:37:51PM -0400, Scott Gifford wrote: I have a Debian Etch installation that's beoming increasingly unstable. It periodically freezes up, with nothing in the logs until it is rebooted. I suspect a hardware problem, and would like to identify it or rule it out before doing an upgrade to Lenny. Can anybody recommend a good hardware diagnostic or burn-in program? I have used memtest86 and will try that, but ideally I'd like to stress test more of the system than just the memory. Something that can run on Debian Etch while the machine is live is ideal, or something that can be run from a boot CD. Free is preferred (of course), but any suggestions are welcome. Also, if anybody has a suggestion of what might fix an Etch system that's freezing up periodically with nothing in the logs, those suggestions are welcome too. :-) Apart from diags for specific hardware (e.g. my HP NetServer LPr diagnostic disk), I use GRML (grml.org) 0.9 CD. I run bad blocks (or the appropriate fs checker with badblocks read/write/verify check) on all filesystems. grml also has memtest+ as a boot option (it can't run properly with an OS running as well). Have the kernel do verbose logging. Consider remote logging; if your hard drive freezes, there's no way for the log to be written. Any serious drive errors should be sent to the console unless you've told the kernel to not send messages to the console; I guess you won't see them if you are in X at the time; consider a serial console to another box (or a real VT). Doug. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: Hardware diagnostics
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 On Tue, May 19, 2009 at 11:37:51PM -0400, Scott Gifford wrote: Hello, I have a Debian Etch installation that's beoming increasingly unstable. It periodically freezes up, with nothing in the logs until it is rebooted. I suspect a hardware problem, and would like to identify it or rule it out before doing an upgrade to Lenny. Can anybody recommend a good hardware diagnostic or burn-in program? I have used memtest86 and will try that, but ideally I'd like to stress test more of the system than just the memory. Something that can run on Debian Etch while the machine is live is ideal, or something that can be run from a boot CD. Free is preferred (of course), but any suggestions are welcome. Also, if anybody has a suggestion of what might fix an Etch system that's freezing up periodically with nothing in the logs, those suggestions are welcome too. :-) Thanks! Scott. A friend and I were just discussing this earlier tonight. You could try any live-CD of your choice for a memory test. I found a thread for a hard drive test http://tinyurl.com/o3vmy7 while `true`; do mke2fs -c -c device; done I believe that will perform a slower read/write test not sure if you'll be able to keep the data. And you can heat things up a bit with... md5sum /dev/zero which should get things pretty hot pretty quickly, so keep an eye on your temps. Aside from that there are a few other threads I found searching over the archives. http://tinyurl.com/ojnsce - -- Daryl Styrk Naples, FL USA -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (GNU/Linux) iEYEARECAAYFAkoTjnQACgkQ6baBhW8Czrg8wQCfb9ealwU+FWalFmuRojefj1rA WkkAniKJ1eWTAx6jEcXQ7MvjFYmmD8U8 =qPm5 -END PGP SIGNATURE- -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: Hardware diagnostics
Hello, may you want let a try to http://linux.softpedia.com/get/Utilities/stress-2881.shtml (Debian package stress) Otherwise, have you try with a verbose kernel, namely a kernel with debugging options ? hth, Jerome Scott Gifford wrote: Hello, I have a Debian Etch installation that's beoming increasingly unstable. It periodically freezes up, with nothing in the logs until it is rebooted. I suspect a hardware problem, and would like to identify it or rule it out before doing an upgrade to Lenny. Can anybody recommend a good hardware diagnostic or burn-in program? I have used memtest86 and will try that, but ideally I'd like to stress test more of the system than just the memory. Something that can run on Debian Etch while the machine is live is ideal, or something that can be run from a boot CD. Free is preferred (of course), but any suggestions are welcome. Also, if anybody has a suggestion of what might fix an Etch system that's freezing up periodically with nothing in the logs, those suggestions are welcome too. :-) Thanks! Scott. -- Jerome BENOIT jgmbenoit_at_mailsnare_dot_net -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
