> CPU...locks up on a simple tar!!!! > Then i only have to reboot. Thats the only thing i can > do!!
I hadn't done the vmstat like you, but I've had this problem before with different distributions including older Mandrakes, when my primary disk was a 1.6 gig Maxstor. That drive has since been relegated to /var, whilst everything else is on a 30 gig IBM drive. I would guess that the problem was bad sectors on the drive. As I recall, the box froze every time I did a tar (backing up to tape) when reading certain files. I don't recall seeing a lockup during a block write operation, only when the blocks are read. Now why it should lock up during a 'tar' is still a mystery. I would have half expected error messages in the logs if these files were read by another method.
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