Hi, Andrew, I've been getting a "Stray IRQ 7" message on an OpenBSD box (GNATbox and OpenBSD have similar roots). IRQ 7 is the parallel printer interrupt, my guess is some noise on the printer port is firing off the interrupt. I've detected no operational issues, and this is the only OpenBSD box I have set up that does this, however it just seems to be informative, not a problem. I would guess that if we both plugged a printer or other printer-like device into the port, the problem would probably go away. I don't really think that is the cause of your problems.
I'm not entirely sure where that kernel panic on trap 9 is coming into play, and even if I did, I probably wouldn't be able to shed light on it. Well, I guess I would probably think hard about your main board and memory, too. The boot problem is either a bad floppy or a bad floppy drive. Both now are pretty much junk. Your best bet for a floppy disk is a recycled disk. A diskette salesperson explained it to me this way: Apparently, the diskette manufacturers discovered if they slapped a life time warranty on their products, people were impressed. They also discovered if the diskettes failed, people didn't complain, nor claim the replacement disks they have been promised. So, they dropped the quality WAY down, cutting their costs. The one exception to the "people don't complain" rule is software producers -- one bad disk out of fifty is devistating to them, on a program consisting of five diskettes, it will lead to a very high rate of unhappy customers. So, the disk manufacturers make a better quality disk called "Duplicator Grade". You can't buy them in retail stores, and you are at the mercy of anyone selling them in bulk, but the good news is almost all old software came on duplicator grade diskettes, you will have much better luck with a used diskette reformatted than a new diskette any more. In case you are wondering what brands I used before I talked to this guy, I was using Verbatim, 3M, and Sony (Sony was the worst -- minimum of one bad disk per box of 10, often two!), and other major names. Since then, I've been using only recycled disks and disks he sells me, and I can't tell you how much better my floppy success has been. Another major issue is the floppy drive. 3.5" Drives are now being sold for well under $15, and I can't imagine how they build the things for that. I have found a very high rate of mis-alignment problems lately, even on new drives. I'm guessing you have an alignment problem between the machine you created your boot disk on and the machine you are running it on. Buy another floppy drive, and see if you can get two that talk to each other (remember: either drive could be out of alignment!) That's my explaination for the "Uncompressing... invalid format" part of your problem (or at least my wild guess). This does not explain why you are getting "Stray IRQ 7" or Kernal Panic trap 9 still...but then, if it isn't booting, I doubt you are actually getting that far to get those messages. Am I missing something? If you are still getting those strange messages (i.e., sometimes it does boot on your new mainboard and memory), you might want to look hard at your processor -- *it* might be what failed (perhaps some dust on the little processor fan caused it to overheat?) Nick. Andrew Stueve wrote: > Send postings to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Access the list archives at: > http://www.gnatbox.com/gb-users/ > ---------------------------------- > I have been running gnatbox light 3.0.1 but had been getting some errors > that appeared to be hardware related. (stray IRQ 7, and kernel panics on > trap 9) > > Since the board and memory are pushing 5 years old, I went out and got a > new MB - FIC 503A, and 32 Mb of mem, and then installed my original p166 > chip. > > I could not boot the original disk that I had been using, so I > downloaded a new copy of gb-light, and made a new boot disk. Same > errors. Help! > > Here is what shows on my screen: > > Boot messages > .......standard stuff > Verify DMI Pool data .... < standard on all PC's at this point > /boot.config: /kernel < this is what I remember happening > GNATBox Light 3.0.1 > loading..... > Uncompressing... invalid format < What?? > System Halted > > Any thoughts??? > -- > Andrew Stueve > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > ---------------------------------------------------- > This is not a sig. Move along. > ---------------------------------------------- > To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] > with "unsubscribe gb-users your_email_address > in the body of the message
