[gentoo-user] System Locking Up

[gentoo-user] System Locking Up

[Shawn Singh]

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Hello all,
 Over the course of the past 2 weeks I've come home to a "zombie machine"
two times. Here are the symptoms:
 1. Can't get the mouse to move on the screen
2. See the time is several hours back (the time that is displayed in the
panel)
3. Can't ssh into the box to find out what might be causing the system to be
unresponsive.
4. Can't ping the box.
 When looking in /var/log in the critical and kernel sections I don't see
any warning messages. I've also looked in the Xorg and sshd logs to see if
there is anything in there to indicate what might be happening, but I don't
see anything.
 I've got a Pentium 4 (1300 Mhz), 768Mb RAM. I've had Gentoo on this box for
several months now (at least 9) and have not seen this problem before (at
least that I can remember).
 What log files might there be that might give some indications as to the
problem that might be causing the system to become unresponsive?

Thank you,
 Shawn Singh

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Re: [gentoo-user] System Locking Up

[Burak Serdar]

Same thing happened to me a few weeks ago. It turned out to be a dying
motherboard. Yours might be something else, but it is likely to be a
hardware problem.

On 11/8/05, Shawn Singh <callmeshawn@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hello all,
>
> Over the course of the past 2 weeks I've come home to a  "zombie machine"
> two times. Here are the  symptoms:
>
> 1.  Can't get the mouse to move on the screen
> 2.  See  the time is several hours back (the time that is displayed in the
> panel)
> 3.  Can't ssh into the box to find out what might be causing the system to
> be unresponsive.
> 4.  Can't  ping  the box.
>
> When looking in /var/log in the critical and kernel sections I don't see any
> warning messages. I've also looked in the Xorg and sshd logs to see if there
> is anything in there to indicate what might be happening, but I don't see
> anything.
>
> I've got a Pentium 4 (1300 Mhz), 768Mb RAM. I've had Gentoo on this box for
> several months now (at least 9) and have not seen this problem before (at
> least  that I can remember).
>
> What log files might there be that might give some indications as to the
> problem that might be causing the system to become unresponsive?
>
> Thank you,
>
> Shawn Singh
>

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Re: [gentoo-user] System Locking Up

[Shawn Singh]

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I hope it's not the mobo. Did you see any logs that indicated hw failure or
anything like that?

On 11/8/05, Burak Serdar <bserdar@ieee.org> wrote:
>
> Same thing happened to me a few weeks ago. It turned out to be a dying
> motherboard. Yours might be something else, but it is likely to be a
> hardware problem.
>
> On 11/8/05, Shawn Singh <callmeshawn@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Hello all,
> >
> > Over the course of the past 2 weeks I've come home to a "zombie machine"
> > two times. Here are the symptoms:
> >
> > 1. Can't get the mouse to move on the screen
> > 2. See the time is several hours back (the time that is displayed in the
> > panel)
> > 3. Can't ssh into the box to find out what might be causing the system
> to
> > be unresponsive.
> > 4. Can't ping the box.
> >
> > When looking in /var/log in the critical and kernel sections I don't see
> any
> > warning messages. I've also looked in the Xorg and sshd logs to see if
> there
> > is anything in there to indicate what might be happening, but I don't
> see
> > anything.
> >
> > I've got a Pentium 4 (1300 Mhz), 768Mb RAM. I've had Gentoo on this box
> for
> > several months now (at least 9) and have not seen this problem before
> (at
> > least that I can remember).
> >
> > What log files might there be that might give some indications as to the
> > problem that might be causing the system to become unresponsive?
> >
> > Thank you,
> >
> > Shawn Singh
> >
>
> --
> gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
>
>


--
Shawn Singh

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Re: [gentoo-user] System Locking Up

[Joseph]

try to run "gkrellm2" it might give you some hints if it is a hardware
related problem on process related.

-- 
#Joseph

On Tue, 2005-11-08 at 22:43 -0500, Shawn Singh wrote:
> Hello all,
>  
> Over the course of the past 2 weeks I've come home to a  "zombie
> machine" two times. Here are the  symptoms:
>  
> 1.  Can't get the mouse to move on the screen
> 2.  See  the time is several hours back (the time that is displayed in
> the panel)
> 3.  Can't ssh into the box to find out what might be causing the
> system to be unresponsive.
> 4.  Can't  ping  the box.
>  
> When looking in /var/log in the critical and kernel sections I don't
> see any warning messages. I've also looked in the Xorg and sshd logs
> to see if there is anything in there to indicate what might be
> happening, but I don't see anything.
>  
> I've got a Pentium 4 (1300 Mhz), 768Mb RAM. I've had Gentoo on this
> box for several months now (at least 9) and have not seen this problem
> before (at  least  that I can remember).
>  
> What log files might there be that might give some indications as to
> the problem that might be causing the system to become unresponsive?
> 
> Thank you,
>  
> Shawn Singh
>  

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Re: [gentoo-user] System Locking Up

[Nick Rout]

On Tue, 08 Nov 2005 22:52:56 -0700
Joseph <syscon@interbaun.com> wrote:

> try to run "gkrellm2" it might give you some hints if it is a hardware
> related problem on process related.
> 
> -- 
> #Joseph

or memtest - at least overnight

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Re: [gentoo-user] System Locking Up

[Joseph]

On Wed, 2005-11-09 at 20:51 +1300, Nick Rout wrote:
> On Tue, 08 Nov 2005 22:52:56 -0700
> Joseph <syscon@interbaun.com> wrote:
> 
> > try to run "gkrellm2" it might give you some hints if it is a hardware
> > related problem on process related.
> > 
> > -- 
> > #Joseph
> 
> or memtest - at least overnight

Don't rely on memtest86 (not reliable); it passed my system twice but I
still had lockup.  
Look for RedHat memtest.sh, it is more reliable. 

-- 
#Joseph
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Re: [gentoo-user] System Locking Up

[Cliff Wells]

On Tue, 2005-11-08 at 22:43 -0500, Shawn Singh wrote:
> Hello all,
>  
> Over the course of the past 2 weeks I've come home to a  "zombie
> machine" two times. Here are the  symptoms:
>  

It does sound like hardware.  I'd check three things first:

1) Are all the fans in the system working?
2) Check for swollen or leaking capacitors (see
http://www.trendit.co.za/capacitor.htm).  This is *really* common, so
don't discount it until you've checked.
3) Run memtest86 overnight.

If none of these seem to be the cause, I'd try swapping power supplies
next.

Regards,
Cliff

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Re: [gentoo-user] System Locking Up

[Cliff Wells]

On Tue, 2005-11-08 at 23:11 -0800, Cliff Wells wrote:
> On Tue, 2005-11-08 at 22:43 -0500, Shawn Singh wrote:
> > Hello all,
> >  
> > Over the course of the past 2 weeks I've come home to a  "zombie
> > machine" two times. Here are the  symptoms:
> >  
> 
> It does sound like hardware.  I'd check three things first:
> 
> 1) Are all the fans in the system working?
> 2) Check for swollen or leaking capacitors (see
> http://www.trendit.co.za/capacitor.htm).  This is *really* common, so
> don't discount it until you've checked.

An added note on this: you can actually repair boards like this (you can
replace any capacitor with a capacitor of equal or greater capacity),
but I've found that it's not worth it.  It can take a couple hours and
is pretty hit or miss (I once replaced half the caps on a dead board
which got it working, then replaced the other half and it never worked
again :P).

Regards,
Cliff

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Re: [gentoo-user] System Locking Up

[Peper]

My Box sometime locks ups during high load, but it's really strange.
For example emerging ~30 ebuilds in xfce Terminal: after 2h of emerging PC 
locked up during kcontrol. After rebooting and again trying to build kcontrol 
it locked up 4 times in a row, but compiling it from shell(without running 
xorg(xfce)) worked fine.

I've tested RAM with bootable cd, disk with extended smart tests and got no 
errors...

-- 
Best Regards,
Peper
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Re: [gentoo-user] System Locking Up

[Dale]

Peper wrote:

>My Box sometime locks ups during high load, but it's really strange.
>For example emerging ~30 ebuilds in xfce Terminal: after 2h of emerging PC 
>locked up during kcontrol. After rebooting and again trying to build kcontrol 
>it locked up 4 times in a row, but compiling it from shell(without running 
>xorg(xfce)) worked fine.
>
>I've tested RAM with bootable cd, disk with extended smart tests and got no 
>errors...
>
>  
>
I'm no guru here but when I had the some thing happening to me a good
while back, I had the wrong chipset selected in my kernel.  I ran hdparm
-Tt /dev/hd* back to back using the && thing and it locked up after
about the third or forth run.  It would not respond any more either.  I
have had to pull the plug, even the power switch wouldn't work.  I would
push it and hold it for 10 seconds or so and it would still be locked
up.  Just to make sure, for primary master:

hdparm -Tt /dev/hda && hdparm -Tt /dev/hda && hdparm -Tt /dev/hda &&
hdparm -Tt /dev/hda && hdparm -Tt /dev/hda

That's the idea.  It works the hard drive pretty good.

Just a thought.

Dale
:-)

-- 
To err is human, I'm most certainly human.

 

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Re: [gentoo-user] System Locking Up

[Peper]

> hdparm -Tt /dev/hda && hdparm -Tt /dev/hda && hdparm -Tt /dev/hda &&
> hdparm -Tt /dev/hda && hdparm -Tt /dev/hda

Works fine on my pc.

-- 
Best Regards,
Peper
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Re: [gentoo-user] System Locking Up

[brullo nulla]

Last time I had these locks up it was a dying power suppy fault.
Dying RAM or mobos are another common cause.

Check your memory with memtest86 overnight, as already suggested. If
memtest86 gives no errors, it's probably the power supply. If it's the
mobo or the RAM, memtest should detect it.

m.

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Re: [gentoo-user] System Locking Up

[Daniel da Veiga]

Well, had some lockups here too, most caused by:

1) Heat, that's a known problem.
2) Memory, guessing what stick is dying makes me ill.
3) MoBo, that Soyo mobo and its inflating capacitors.

I came to the conclusion that a PC must have special treatment in
order to keep up night and day (wich is my case), so, a good
environment and sane settings are welcome. Good fans, maybe a water
cooler for heat control, strict control over static eletricity and
dust (yeah, hate it), and not playing around with flags for "super
duper velocity" that may hang the system.

Anyway, I would check all the stuff the other people mentioned, and
also check my video card for any problem (once it turned out to be a
memory problem AT THE VIDEO CARD). Good luck.

--
Daniel da Veiga
Computer Operator - RS - Brazil
-----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK-----
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GCM/IT/P/O d-? s:- a? C++$ UBLA++ P+ L++ E--- W+++$ N o+ K- w O M- V-
PS PE Y PGP- t+ 5 X+++ R+* tv b+ DI+++ D+ G+ e h+ r+ y++
------END GEEK CODE BLOCK------

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Re: [gentoo-user] System Locking Up

[Daniel da Veiga]

On 11/9/05, Peper <peper@aster.pl> wrote:
> My Box sometime locks ups during high load, but it's really strange.
> For example emerging ~30 ebuilds in xfce Terminal: after 2h of emerging PC
> locked up during kcontrol. After rebooting and again trying to build kcontrol
> it locked up 4 times in a row, but compiling it from shell(without running
> xorg(xfce)) worked fine.

Forgot to mention that I had the same problem as Peter with X
terminals, from that day on compiles and high demand shell stuff only
with tty console.

> I've tested RAM with bootable cd, disk with extended smart tests and got no
> errors...
>
> --
> Best Regards,
> Peper
> --
> gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
>
>


--
Daniel da Veiga
Computer Operator - RS - Brazil
-----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK-----
Version: 3.1
GCM/IT/P/O d-? s:- a? C++$ UBLA++ P+ L++ E--- W+++$ N o+ K- w O M- V-
PS PE Y PGP- t+ 5 X+++ R+* tv b+ DI+++ D+ G+ e h+ r+ y++
------END GEEK CODE BLOCK------

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Re: [gentoo-user] System Locking Up

[Peper]

> Forgot to mention that I had the same problem as Peter with X
> terminals, from that day on compiles and high demand shell stuff only
> with tty console.

My pc locked up several times when compiling in tty, but with running 
xorg(xfce). Really strange for me, maybe it is the power supply but i have no 
idea how to connect PS with difference(never had a lock up without running 
xorg, but i rarely don't have running xorg) in running software.

I will try the memtest86+, maybe it will find something(please no!).
But how can i deeply test hd? And maybe some idea to test PS? Next time i'll 
try to monitor sensors output for PS voltage.

-- 
Best Regards,
Peper
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Re: [gentoo-user] System Locking Up

[Benno Schulenberg]

Peper wrote:
> (never had a lock up without running xorg, but i rarely don't have
> running xorg)

Sounds like a problem with the video driver then -- painting a 
graphical screen takes quite some resources and DMA access, which 
can lockup the bus...

So switch back to a kernel of several weeks ago, and see if the 
problem goes away.

Benno
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Re: [gentoo-user] System Locking Up

[Peper]

New debug info:
when locked up my pc responses to ping and ssh connection(I get only login 
respone, i cannot actually log in). Moreover ssh logs "sshd: fatal: Timeout 
before authentication for IP".

I am not sure what to think about it...

-- 
Best Regards,
Peper
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Re: [gentoo-user] System Locking Up

[Shawn Haggett]

Peper wrote:

>New debug info:
>when locked up my pc responses to ping and ssh connection(I get only login 
>respone, i cannot actually log in). Moreover ssh logs "sshd: fatal: Timeout 
>before authentication for IP".
>
>I am not sure what to think about it...
>
>  
>
I had a similar thing happen with mine. Turned out it was a dying HDD. I 
assumed the behaviour was caused by things like sshd trying to write to 
the log about a connection attempt, but it would block because it 
couldn't write to the disk. Same for logging into to a console. But 
network traffic was still passing through the machine, and it could 
still be pinged.
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