Backing up my accusations that AMD hates me.

[Larcen]

x86 minimal cd should do the trick right, for Athlon-XP cpu? And the arch for make.conf is athlon-xp right? This POS keeps freezing up or giving me Kernel panic's, syncing issues.

[desultory]

Indeed. It seems so. Is it overclocked or under cooled?

[XenoTerraCide]

are you having problems with the cd? or have you already chrooted? did you get the right tarball? addition: I can't tell what your problem with the POS is without more description. I have worked on amd K6-2, Athlon-XP, and Athlon64s, without problem. so unless you have faulty hardware...
_________________
I don't hang out here anymore, try asking on http://unix.stackexchange.com/ if you want my help.

[Larcen]

One of the computers in the house decided to take a crap, so, I figured I would play around with it.

Attempt #1:
Hardware:

[Kathars!s]

hi laurcen,

the obvious question (you didn't say anything about this), did you made a memory test ?
theres nothing wrong with my amd hardware for many years but noname memory sux and pny ... no idea, graphic adapters or what are these guys producing ?

and for the testing, stay away from "optimized defaults" in bios, revert it to safe defaults and then set everything according to your needs.

if the spd-eeprom is shitty, set the memory to safe timings (3,3,3).

besides, if it doesn't boot linux theres the possibility of something is misconfigured but if it don't boot xp, it's a bunch of shit

[Larcen]

Not overclocked that I know of, and it should be cooled plenty, the fan is turning at roughly 5000RPM's and is under no strain that I know of.

For better detailed information see:

https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-455324-highlight-.html

edit by nixnut: thread merged with this one

[Larcen]

Memory tests all passed, when it would stay running long enough to reach the last pass. I don't know a whole lot about what you said with the whole 3,3,3 eeprom thing. I'll give it a look in BIOS.

[desultory]

[desultory]

While I realize that two at a time is rather unlikely under normal conditions, I have encounterd such behaviour with a dodgy power supply.

Why the new thread?

[Kathars!s]

every memory module has an SPD-EEPROM, often called speed-rom but that's false. this chip should contain the timings to auto-configure the module.
there is a huge amount of modules with incorrect timings. in this case, you should check the home page for the correct timings or set safe timings, 333 should be safe for pc2100 ddr modules and for pc133 sd modules.

what do you mean with

[Larcen]

Sorry, I meant the last cycle. Being this thing has worn me out for today, i'm going to call it a night, and start anew tomorrow. Thanks for all the input so far, I'll check those eeprom settings first thing.

-Edit-

desultory- You mentioned elsewhere the power supply(s) being a source of the issues as well. Could one be a POS, and the other not powerful enough to give suffiecent power to the CPU?

[Larcen]

Honestly? I forgot I had already posted once already. :/ Sorry.

[desultory]

[Larcen]

Alright. I recently bought a new case/Power supply and it's a 420W unit, but, the main plug is huge, it's like a normal ATX plug with the 12V P4 plug attached, and it certainly won't plug into any Motherboard I own. I'm guessing it's for the latest style Intel/AMD boards maybe? All my luck with hardware lately has gone out the window.

[desultory]

If it has an ATX+12v connection with the additional pins as a detachable group or mounted so as to clear motherboard components, it should work just fine for testing, otherwise I would not risk it as bad things could happen, nasty pricey things. Do not try to use the power supply unless you know that it is compatible.

[Larcen]

Ok, I've thrown in the towel. I broke out the brand new 400W Power supply i've been hording for later use, went about exchanging out CPU's, RAM, HDD's, Fan's, Cases, Cords, Wall Recepticals, and even Surge Protectors. And I always end up with the same results. Freezes, Lock-Ups, and won't even turn on's. Can't even get past the Initial BIOS turn on screen sometimes, othertimes I can get into BIOS but rarely be able to exit and continue, or exit and continue and it lock down while 'restarting' Otherwise, I get into booting the kernel for a Linux install, or the first page or two of Windows install, XP and 2000 Professional. I'm going to chalk this one up as Matt - 0 and AMD - 1.

[desultory]

[cybermonkey]

It is more than likely a processor fault.
I had this problem with an athlon-xp 2200, I thought it was screwed but after playing around, It turned out that by nudging the heatsink a nano milimeter out of position, It would do what you are experianing.

Make sure that your heatsink is the right way round, Has plenty of thermal paste, and is well secured to the die.

[Larcen]

Several days later, several, several hours later and much cursing I've gotten everything to turn on, boot up and into one of the older livecd's, 2004.3 to be exact. It loads to command prompt, and if I do nothing it'll sit right there for approx: 10 minutes, it varies sometimes 5 minutes sometimes 20. I get a scroll of errors, stacks, modules, and about 20 [234234] type scenarios one after the other scrolling down then it locks up. Holding the power button is the only release from this state. I think lighter fluid and a match is this machines only solution.

[cybermonkey]

[Larcen]

Just borrowed another CPu from another guy, said it worked last he used it, it's a 1800+ and it's giving the same sort of response. I've googled for and searched these forums for anything with the Unable to handle Kernel NULL Pointer thing with all the wierd lines of code I don't quite understand. Bah, I'll burn it all.

[desultory]

Put down the lighter and step away from the computer, keep it for parts, give it to someone who wants to try fixing it or wants it for parts, sell it to some computer store so they can fix it or part it out, just do not burn it, consider the odor.