I have an older Endrun Technologies Praecis Gntp (GPS) time server. Basically it's a small SBC coupled together with a special board made by Endrun (I think really it's just their Praecis Ce Time & Frequency Engine) and a Trimble GPS module.
It ran fine for years, then one day it stopped responding. After fiddling with it thinking possibly it was a bad power supply or something I've ruled out most issues. The one thing I've noticed is the CPU runs HOT. My guess is it's overheating and locking up. When I SSH in, the CPU load is always 1 or higher. I tried killing off all the processes but the CPU load still is pegged, typically sits around 1.30. Unfortunately there isn't the full set of usual linux programs and only a minimal amount of info from /proc. For now I have the case off and a little fan on the CPU to keep it from locking up, but obviously that isn't a long-term solution. I don't think the MB is bad, there is nothing obviously damaged on the PCB and the voltages are okay. I thought maybe a bad memory chip, but why would that cause a high CPU load? I've tried booting from the stock image, but it still loads whatever custom files have been created. I haven't found a way to reset it completely back to stock. I talked to the endrun tech support and unfortunately this system is so old it's not even supported anymore. I even tried asking for the NTP driver source code so I could roll my own OS with NTP, but that was a no go. I think I'm going to pull the DOM chip and hook up a notebook HD since it has a header for one and see how the board runs with a more modern Linux. Last resort I think it's possible to switch the Endrun timing module into a pseudo-trimble mode, which NTP has built-in support for and use it that way. Does anyone else have one of these, and if so can you see what your CPU load is? Considering what little this does I would think it would sit around 0.01 or so... _______________________________________________ time-nuts mailing list -- [email protected] To unsubscribe, go to https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts and follow the instructions there.
