civileme wrote:
>
> On Wednesday 03 January 2001 06:41, you wrote:
> > It does almost sound like hardware - when you run RH or Debian do you
> > stress the system to see if it dies?
> > (like running several instances of "cp /dev/hda /dev/null" or "find / |
> > cpio -o | compress > /dev/null")
> >
> > I was going to say that memory may be an issue but you have ECC RAM and
> > that should squawk if there are errors.
> >
> > How did you get your distro? off the net? There were a few posts I saw that
> > implicated that some of the Mandrake ISOs might be corrupt on some of the
> > mirrors or become corrupt at download.
> >
> > BTW: Why do you have to recompile for SMP support? - may be I'm thinking of
> > Red Hat but I could swear that Mandrake provided SMP kernel rpms.
>
> With PPros you need the latest BIOS for our stock SMP kernel. Symptoms vary
> from hard-lock at boot to what you described earlier, though I don't think I
> have seen all the symptoms on the same system before.
Where would I go about getting that?
>
> Civileme
>
> >
> > May be you should try temporarily pulling out one of the processors? (I'm
> > grasping at straws here)
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> > To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> > Sent: Tuesday, January 02, 2001 10:02 AM
> > Subject: Re: [expert] Critical problem (Not a Hardware Problem)
> >
> >
> > [ snip ]
> >
> > > This problem came up within 24 hours of performing a complete system
> >
> > update from
> >
> > > one of the Mandrake mirrors. However, this may be a coincidence.
> > >
> > > When I booted the machine, the LILO dialog screen came up as usual. If I
> > > selected the standard "linux" or just let the default do the work, the
> >
> > same
> >
> > > result: An immediate reboot. LILO dialog comes up, default, reboot.
> > > The
> >
> > cycle
> >
> > > continued.
> > >
> > > Not having a working box, I performed an experiment. This is what I did
> >
> > (with
> >
> > > attendant results):
> > >
> > > 1. Performed a complete reinstall of Mandrake 7.2 (from scratch,
> > > including reformatting the hard disk (I wanted to get rid of CUPS
> > > anyway)). Result: Exact same problem, LILO, select, reboot.
> > >
> > > 2. Next, I switched distributions and loaded Debian 2.2r1 onto the box.
> >
> > It ran
> >
> > > just fine. No memory problems, no hard disk problems, nothing out of the
> > > ordinary.
> > >
> > > 3. Next, tried loading Mandrake 7.2 back on. Exact same problem! LILO,
> >
> > select,
> >
> > > reboot cycle. Moreover, I tried to load from a boot floppy. Same
> >
> > problem!
> >
> > > 4. Next, I switched yet again to RedHat 6.2. Same result as Debian.
> >
> > Normal
> >
> > > install and stable performance.
> > >
> > > Here is the configuration:
> > >
> > > Compaq Professional Workstation 8000
> > > Dual Pentium Pro (200 MHz)
> > > 128 MB ECC RAM
> > > two 4 GB Segate SCSI HD's (no RAID).
> > > Voodoo3 2000 PCI video card.
> > >
> > > The odd thing is that Mandrake ran stable for several weeks before
> > > failure (albeit just after a major update). However, if it was something
> > > with the update, the reinstall should have cleared it up -- but it
> > > didn't.
> > >
> > > I plan to do some more troubleshooting tonight. I will first try to
> >
> > reload
> >
> > > Mandrake, only this time I will specify GRUB in lieu of LILO.
> > >
> > > Next, I will load Mandrake 7.1 and see if I can narrow the problem down
> > > to
> >
> > 7.2.
> >
> > > One last thing, since this is an SMP system, and I have to recompile the
> >
> > kernel
> >
> > > for SMP (and I'm not sure about RH 6.2), I will first check out SMP
> >
> > enablement
> >
> > > in RH 6.2 and, if necessary, recompile the kernel for SMP and reboot to
> >
> > see
> >
> > > whether that is causing the problem. Note, however, that upon boot both
> > > processors are initialized (as normal) so I don't think that SMP is a
> >
> > problem.
> >
> > > Any other suggestions?
> > >
> > > TIA,
> > >
> > > Ron
> > > ./.
