Re: [Xpert]Re: X 4.2.x + TNT + ATI All-In-Wonder 128 = hard freeze- it's something else
Ok, sorry to have wasted bandwidth and brain cells, I'm back to 4.1 and it still freezes. I really dunno why it fails now. I tried changing kernel versions, even reflashing motherboard bios to all possible revisions ... no way, it still freezes. I noticed the nvidia uses the same pirq than my network card, but even when I remove it (the nvidia), my pc still fails. It seems really bound to X activity: I can compile kernels or do otherwise cpu-intensive tasks for hours without problems, but if I use galeon or xine or other X-intensive tasks, it freezes after a while (seconds or minutes or more). Does any of you have experience about such failures ? Can it be hardware-related ? BIOS-related ? I didn't change my hardware and it was working very well a month ago. ___ Xpert mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://XFree86.Org/mailman/listinfo/xpert
Re: [Xpert]Re: X 4.2.x + TNT + ATI All-In-Wonder 128 = hard freeze- it's something else
Ok, sorry to have wasted bandwidth and brain cells, I'm back to 4.1 and it still freezes. I really dunno why it fails now. I tried changing kernel versions, even reflashing motherboard bios to all possible revisions ... no way, it still freezes. I noticed the nvidia uses the same pirq than my network card, but even when I remove it (the nvidia), my pc still fails. It seems really bound to X activity: I can compile kernels or do otherwise cpu-intensive tasks for hours without problems, but if I use galeon or xine or other X-intensive tasks, it freezes after a while (seconds or minutes or more). Does any of you have experience about such failures ? Can it be hardware-related ? BIOS-related ? I didn't change my hardware and it was working very well a month ago. Yes, I have a friend who's computer does this. If he doesn't use X his computer will run for days, in fact if he doesn't run X his computer will run for days. But he can walk over and sit down and touch the mouse and a few minutes later his box just dies. Never at a particular time, it seemed sound related for a while, but it's not because sometimes it does it with out sound.It did it in windows 98, ME, and 2k, as well as linux. Started about a year ago. But he has k6-2 400, NVidia TNT2. He's tried swapping memory and cpu and video card, and it wasn't any of those. Only thing left is mother board. But just similar symptoms, so I couldn't say if it's the same boat your in. Hope that helps, Let me know if you figure it out. Thanks, Josie Imlay ___ Xpert mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://XFree86.Org/mailman/listinfo/xpert ___ Xpert mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://XFree86.Org/mailman/listinfo/xpert
Re: [Xpert]Re: X 4.2.x + TNT + ATI All-In-Wonder 128 = hard freeze- it's something else
On 11 Sep 2002, Xavier Bestel wrote: Ok, sorry to have wasted bandwidth and brain cells, I'm back to 4.1 and it still freezes. I really dunno why it fails now. I tried changing kernel versions, even reflashing motherboard bios to all possible revisions ... no way, it still freezes. I noticed the nvidia uses the same pirq than my network card, but even when I remove it (the nvidia), my pc still fails. It seems really bound to X activity: I can compile kernels or do otherwise cpu-intensive tasks for hours without problems, but if I use galeon or xine or other X-intensive tasks, it freezes after a while (seconds or minutes or more). Does any of you have experience about such failures ? Can it be hardware-related ? BIOS-related ? I didn't change my hardware and it was working very well a month ago. Specific problems I can think that might only affect graphics, but not compiles or other CPU intensive tasks include: 1) Fastwrites enabled when the chips don't really support them. 2) Mapping registers cached (shouldn't have happened). 3) Bad resource arbitration in the motherboard bios (conflicts, overlaps). 4) Power regulation problems. Mark. ___ Xpert mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://XFree86.Org/mailman/listinfo/xpert
RE: [Xpert]Re: X 4.2.x + TNT + ATI All-In-Wonder 128 = hard freeze - it's something else
Le mer 11/09/2002 à 21:18, Alexander Stohr a écrit : He should think about the power supply... The integrated health status sensors of my motherboard tell me voltages are Ok ... can I trust them ? ___ Xpert mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://XFree86.Org/mailman/listinfo/xpert
Re: [Xpert]Re: X 4.2.x + TNT + ATI All-In-Wonder 128 = hard freeze- it's something else
Le mer 11/09/2002 à 21:30, Mark Vojkovich a écrit : Specific problems I can think that might only affect graphics, but not compiles or other CPU intensive tasks include: 1) Fastwrites enabled when the chips don't really support them. Nope 2) Mapping registers cached (shouldn't have happened). 3) Bad resource arbitration in the motherboard bios (conflicts, overlaps). How do I find that ? Is there some doc somewhere about how to hunt such conflicts ? 4) Power regulation problems. Sensors say it's OK. Thanks for the tips Mark. ___ Xpert mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://XFree86.Org/mailman/listinfo/xpert
Re: [Xpert]Re: X 4.2.x + TNT + ATI All-In-Wonder 128 = hard freeze- it's something else
On 11 Sep 2002, Xavier Bestel wrote: 3) Bad resource arbitration in the motherboard bios (conflicts, overlaps). How do I find that ? Is there some doc somewhere about how to hunt such conflicts ? Usually XFree86's verbose output would complain about overlaps. There's always the possibliltiy of some other broken card in the system that reports its needs incorrectly (remember the S3 968) and a correctly operating bios leaving it overlapping something else. But I think most of those types of problems would be well known and already worked around in the kernel, etc... And we're really grasping at straws at that point. Do you have alot of power consumption in your system? How many Watts can the power supply provide? Can you hear phenomenon like your fans sounding like their RPMs are dropping when you do cpu or graphics intensive tasks? Even if the power supply itself is OK, it could be a regulation problem on the board. Have you tried snipping out the freetype or xtt modules so that the TrueType font renders don't get used? There have been fatal bugs in those in the past. I think they are all fixed by now though. Mark. ___ Xpert mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://XFree86.Org/mailman/listinfo/xpert
Re: [Xpert]Re: X 4.2.x + TNT + ATI All-In-Wonder 128 = hard freeze- it's something else
Le mer 11/09/2002 à 22:51, Mark Vojkovich a écrit : Do you have alot of power consumption in your system? How many Watts can the power supply provide? Can you hear phenomenon like your fans sounding like their RPMs are dropping when you do cpu or graphics intensive tasks? Even if the power supply itself is OK, it could be a regulation problem on the board. I have a 150W PSU (a Wintech), on a dual-pIII 1GHz (with big fans which sound a bit like a 747 taking-off), 2 HDDs, an internal Zip, a DVD, a CDRW, an IEEE1394 card, an eth card, a sound card, and obviously a R128 AGP and a TNT2 PCI. I have to admit I really don't know how much power all this may drain. And yes, I can tell the CPUs load just by listening to the fans. Have you tried snipping out the freetype or xtt modules so that the TrueType font renders don't get used? There have been fatal bugs in those in the past. I think they are all fixed by now though. I tried that, without luck. GTK+2 still uses truetype fonts, but as it's client-space rendering I don't think it matters. Xav ___ Xpert mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://XFree86.Org/mailman/listinfo/xpert
Re: [Xpert]Re: X 4.2.x + TNT + ATI All-In-Wonder 128 = hard freeze- it's something else
Le mer 11/09/2002 à 23:41, Xavier Bestel a écrit : Le mer 11/09/2002 à 22:51, Mark Vojkovich a écrit : Do you have alot of power consumption in your system? How many Watts can the power supply provide? Can you hear phenomenon like your fans sounding like their RPMs are dropping when you do cpu or graphics intensive tasks? Even if the power supply itself is OK, it could be a regulation problem on the board. I have a 150W PSU (a Wintech), on a dual-pIII 1GHz (with big fans which sound a bit like a 747 taking-off), 2 HDDs, an internal Zip, a DVD, a CDRW, an IEEE1394 card, an eth card, a sound card, and obviously a R128 AGP and a TNT2 PCI. I have to admit I really don't know how much power all this may drain. And yes, I can tell the CPUs load just by listening to the fans. Err ... I mistyped, it's a 250W PSU. But after surfing a bit, it seems it's way out of specs. So well ... I'll have to go and buy a bigger one, something like a 400W I think. Thanks a lot for the tip. ___ Xpert mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://XFree86.Org/mailman/listinfo/xpert
Re: [Xpert]Re: X 4.2.x + TNT + ATI All-In-Wonder 128 = hard freeze- it's something else
On 11 Sep 2002, Xavier Bestel wrote: Le mer 11/09/2002 à 22:51, Mark Vojkovich a écrit : Do you have alot of power consumption in your system? How many Watts can the power supply provide? Can you hear phenomenon like your fans sounding like their RPMs are dropping when you do cpu or graphics intensive tasks? Even if the power supply itself is OK, it could be a regulation problem on the board. I have a 150W PSU (a Wintech), on a dual-pIII 1GHz (with big fans which sound a bit like a 747 taking-off), 2 HDDs, an internal Zip, a DVD, a CDRW, an IEEE1394 card, an eth card, a sound card, and obviously a R128 AGP and a TNT2 PCI. I have to admit I really don't know how much power all this may drain. And yes, I can tell the CPUs load just by listening to the fans. I'm thinking 150 Watts really isn't enough for that. My main machine has a similar setup (dual PIIIs and two video cards) and I have a 235 Watt power supply which I'd consider marginal. I have an HP dual P4 machine here with a 465 Watt power supply in it. If your fans are speeding up when the CPU is going full bore (some inteligent cooling system) that is good. If they are slowing down, that means they're starved for power. That's usually not a good sign. I have seen fan slowdowns in other machines and I've generally considered that as a tip-off that there are power problems. Mark. ___ Xpert mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://XFree86.Org/mailman/listinfo/xpert
Re: [Xpert]Re: X 4.2.x + TNT + ATI All-In-Wonder 128 = hard freeze - it's something else
The motherboard sensors tend to be pretty slow and only give you an average value. Unfortunately, long before you see hardware failing due to low voltage, you'll run into problems with transients. Short of hooking up some expensive test equipment (a oscilloscope would work), there isn't much you can do to test for these -- and power supply manufacturers don't typically tell you all the specs that you need to know. As a rule of thumb, if you buy a power supply that has generous extra ampere ratings on all of the different voltage lines (e.g. 3.3V, 5V, 12V, and the negative ones), chances are you'll get something that will be able to avoid transients, but even then there are no real guarantees. For a system with one or two fast CPUs (1GHz and above) and a modern AGP graphics card, you will probably want to get a PSU that is rated in excess of 300W (450W or so is probably a good bet). If you can buy a reputable brand-name product, you might want to consider that option -- and even after all this, you might still have bad luck and end up with a PSU that just doesn't work with your system. Markus P.S.: BTW, if your graphics card has a connector that allows you to supply additional power directly to it rather than going through the AGP bus, then make sure you take advantage of this. Modern graphics card put quite some load on the system and not all motherboards can supply this much current over the AGP bus itself. Xavier Bestel wrote: Le mer 11/09/2002 à 21:18, Alexander Stohr a écrit : He should think about the power supply... The integrated health status sensors of my motherboard tell me voltages are Ok ... can I trust them ? ___ Xpert mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://XFree86.Org/mailman/listinfo/xpert -- Markus Gutschke 3637 Fillmore Street #106 San Francisco, CA 94123-1600 +1-415-567-8449 [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Xpert mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://XFree86.Org/mailman/listinfo/xpert
