Sounds like hardware to me too. You could try swapping the memory first.....
Morris On Sat, 2004-03-27 at 03:19, Brian A. Henning wrote: > Hi guys, > This is more of a hardware issue, I believe, than software, but we are > trying to install FC1 so I think it counts, right? :-) At any rate... > > The patient is a friend's aging Celeron 433 from CompUSA. Un-branded > baby-ATX mobo, sporting a SiS 5595 southbridge chipset, onboard > audio/video/usb, socket 370. 256 MB RAM, split among one 128 and two 64 MB > sticks (PC100 SDRAM). Wimpy 185 max wattage PS, but there's only one > Seagate 4.something HD, one 48X Max CD-ROM, and floppy drive. > > The problem is we have been wholly unsuccessful in installing jack squat on > this thing. Further maddening is the fact that the only reliable outcome is > that it WILL choke somewhere along the way. Where, and how, remains largely > random. I really believe it is a faulty mobo or CPU to blame, but I wanted > to present the symptoms for someone else who may be able to give a more > authoritative "I agree." > > As I mentioned, in most instances, the installation process simply freezes > at a random point. However, some minor patterns did emerge. > > If booting from CD, the boot process was most likely to freeze at one of the > following two points: > Immediately after > RAMDISK: Compressed image found at block 0 > or at > running /sbin/loader... > > Turning off the framebuffer (as /sbin/loader is the point at which that > appears to begin making a difference) actually proved to be > detrimental---with the nofb boot option, often the left third of the screen > would become filled with a column of garbage characters (in textmode---the > one time X successfully started, there were a couple columns of garbled and > reflected pixels [snowy images of other parts of the screen], and it froze, > so we stuck to textmode from then on). > > Using the mediacheck option sometimes managed to push the process through to > the media verification, during which (somewhere in the 20% range) the > computer spontaneously rebooted itself. > > Booting from floppy and attempting an FTP install most commonly froze after > Transferring Fedora/base/netstg2.img, before anaconda was launched. A few > times, Anaconda was launched and got as far as detecting the video, monitor, > and mouse before freezing. Once, ONCE, the process got as far as completing > Disk Druid. Once. Out of what felt like hundreds of attempts. Only twice > did the process get even as far as selecting Desktop, Laptop, Server, or > Custom installation variety. > > We've played with RAM timing (the primitive Award bios, the most recent > available for that hardware being two years old, offered little Wait State > adjustment [0WS or 1WS]---that was one suggestion we came across...also > futzed with SDRAM Input and Output signal timing), IDE transfer modes, and > other sundry BIOS options, generally to no perceivable avail. > > Other common exits were the infuriatingly vague "Installer terminated > abnormally," or a Kernel Panic claiming inability to mount root file system > at either 09:01 or 48:03 (I believe). > > cpio: bad magic > was also a common apparently nonfatal error, which seemed to be loosely tied > to enabling 32-bit IDE transfers. > > We reseated everything multiple times. I noted that the first two DIMM > slots seemed rather loose; I don't know if they were electrically loose, but > they definitely felt as though they did not have a strong mechanical grip on > the DIMMs. I borrowed some RAM from a friend to swap out. memtest86 > crashed at about 60%. I don't think the ram sticks themselves are to blame. > > We tried numerous IDE cable swaps. Unhooking the CD-ROM. Unhooking the HD, > just to see if it would boot all the way (it still randomly froze). > > The absolutely most maddening, frustrating aspect is that insanity reigned > supreme---meaning that exactly the same input often yielded wildly differing > results. > > Other distros that failed to boot successfully included SuSE Live Eval 9.0, > Knoppix 3.3, Red Hat Linux 9. WinXP also failed to make it all the way > through the boot process. > > So the total of all that makes me think it's hardware. Anyone able to > evaluate these symptoms and say "yeah, you're probably right?" If there's > something we're missing, we'd love to know about it. My friend is new to > the linux world and is eager to plunge in and learn his way around FC. > > If anyone has an old mobo with the same baby-ATX form factor sporting Socket > 370, or a Socket 370 processor around 433MHz they'd be willing to lend or > part with so we can try other hw, let me know. I'd definitely appreciate > it. > > Thanks a lot for wading through all this and offering any insight. > > Cheers, > ~Brian > > -- > TriLUG mailing list : http://www.trilug.org/mailman/listinfo/trilug > TriLUG Organizational FAQ : http://trilug.org/faq/ > TriLUG Member Services FAQ : http://members.trilug.org/services_faq/ > TriLUG PGP Keyring : http://trilug.org/~chrish/trilug.asc -- TriLUG mailing list : http://www.trilug.org/mailman/listinfo/trilug TriLUG Organizational FAQ : http://trilug.org/faq/ TriLUG Member Services FAQ : http://members.trilug.org/services_faq/ TriLUG PGP Keyring : http://trilug.org/~chrish/trilug.asc
