Problems with system

Graham · n00b Joined: 05 Feb 2003 Posts: 9

Not sure what to put this under but here we go.

I had various memory issues when compiling gentoo so went and bought a 512mb stip of crucial and all the compiles went fine & memtest86 is fine.

But at the moment my system has problems starting up. From a cold boot i usually get a seg fault on the kernel and / or sometimes kdm wont start. If then reboot cleanly from the failed kdm case, gentoo comes up fine and the system is stable.

I'm using the vanilla kernel with options in my make.conf of

CFLAGS="-mcpu=athlon-xp -O3 -pipe -fomit-frame-pointer"

Any ideas whats likely to be wrong ? My hardware or gentoo ?
Or how to track down the issue ?

cram · Posted: Tue Feb 25, 2003 9:09 am Post subject:

if the errors seem to occur in random places, my guess is it's a hardware problem.

I'm not sure what the best way to track down the problem is, but the first thing I do with any spurious errors that I think are hardware-created is check the power supply fan. I know from experience that power supply problems can result in all sorts of bizarre problems

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aaarggghhhh.
Good point Chewie.

pjp · Administrator Joined: 16 Apr 2002 Posts: 20583

Linux hardware stability guide, Part 1 might be helpful.
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Quis separabit? Quo animo?

Graham · n00b Joined: 05 Feb 2003 Posts: 9

Yeah the power supply might be the thing as once the system is up it's ok.
Perhaps it draws more power on startup ?

What makes would anyone recommend for a new power supply ?
And what power output ?

My pc has an athlon 1800 xp, dvd rom, cdrw, powered firewire card, sound blaster audigy, geforece 3 pci, nic card, 1 fan, 2 hard disks.

Cheers

counterpt · n00b Joined: 29 Dec 2002 Posts: 66

I recently had strange/similar problems after I moved my motherboard to a new case. It turned out that it was overheating and I could only install Gentoo if I kept the case door open...
Might be worth chenking out.

happyslinky · n00b Joined: 01 Mar 2003 Posts: 4

hm in most cases removing the side of the case will mess up your airflow and cause even more heat to build up. Unless you put a floor fan blowing into the comp or something hah...

I've had heat cause seg faults on my comp before (airflow through heatsink was blocked), it got bad enough that the comp would consistantly crash after a couple minutes of being on (just idle).

I'd say try cleaning out your case, fans, heatsink(s) (compressed air is fun), the floor-fan-into-open-case approach is something to try too. If none of that helps then definently try another power suppy. With your specs you might want to go with 300W+, i've had good experiences with enermax power supplies.

good luck

counterpt · n00b Joined: 29 Dec 2002 Posts: 66

Thanks, I was just trying to help narrow down the poster's problem.
I bought a very cheap case to shove under my dest at my office. It has almost no ariflow even with fans (the front intake is pathetic and it's really badly designed; there were lots of places that I can't iimagine had good airflow. I already ordered a new (expensive, small, with big front intake and side intake) case and I can live with the case open for a few days. But I don't have a problem, i'm just trying to make a suggestion to Graham, the poster.
Thanks again.

Graham · n00b Joined: 05 Feb 2003 Posts: 9

Does anyone think the problem could be caused by having gentoo on a slave disk ?

If i boot windows from the master then reboot to gentoo it's fine ?

Just wondering if there is some hard disk problem ?

Perhaps I should move gentoo to the master disk ?

Cheers