From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Tue Mar 28 21:24:15 2006 Return-Path: X-Original-To: questions@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 88D9816A435 for ; Tue, 28 Mar 2006 21:24:15 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from mark.r.cullen@gmail.com) Received: from zproxy.gmail.com (zproxy.gmail.com [64.233.162.206]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 500B343D6E for ; Tue, 28 Mar 2006 21:24:13 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from mark.r.cullen@gmail.com) Received: by zproxy.gmail.com with SMTP id 13so31145nzp for ; Tue, 28 Mar 2006 13:24:12 -0800 (PST) DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; q=dns; c=nofws; s=beta; d=gmail.com; h=received:message-id:date:from:user-agent:x-accept-language:mime-version:to:cc:subject:references:in-reply-to:content-type:content-transfer-encoding; b=I5SUbf2upYyVnx+dUWq2PSJghUS4dAqXeSGiGiBwW0So+LPh+Mo5rdFKmD/HwGDXGKhI28q+UusAWypYlzQEclNLBQOQw1czdSTLM0EYdTsIaEkNESaPAh7sIXBbhzoR6bloul/XI3GRddMvit7wGJc5EMsBWiutOJcKN8ghiak= Received: by 10.65.53.10 with SMTP id f10mr3854400qbk; Tue, 28 Mar 2006 13:24:12 -0800 (PST) Received: from ?10.0.0.245? ( [88.96.18.86]) by mx.gmail.com with ESMTP id a5sm1582262qbd.2006.03.28.13.24.11; Tue, 28 Mar 2006 13:24:12 -0800 (PST) Message-ID: <4429A96A.7080502@gmail.com> Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2006 22:23:54 +0100 From: Mark Cullen User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird 1.0.7 (Windows/20050923) X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: freebsd@voidmain.net References: <442995E5.9070106@voidmain.net> In-Reply-To: <442995E5.9070106@voidmain.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: 4.11 Server Locks Up X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2006 21:24:15 -0000 Tom Grove wrote: > Over the past few months I have noticed that our mail server is flat out > locking up. I monitor it via Nagios and about once every two months I > get emails saying it is down and when I go over to the console the > server is totally unresponsive. I've gone through logs every time and > find nothing at all wrong. > This is a Dell PowerEdge 2850 with Dual Xeon cpu's and 2GB of memory. > Uname replies with: > > FreeBSD colossus 4.11-RELEASE-p13 FreeBSD 4.11-RELEASE-p13 #0: Fri Oct > 14 13:34:01 EDT 2005 root@colossus:/usr/obj/usr/src/sys/COLOSSUS i386 > > One, has anyone else had similar problems with boxes just becoming > unresponsive under high load? Two, is there any reason this would occur? > > -Tom Grove > > > _______________________________________________ > freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list > http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions > To unsubscribe, send any mail to > "freebsd-questions-unsubscribe@freebsd.org" > I have very recently (a couple of weeks a go) had my small home server start randomly deciding to lock up, not even under heavy load. It would just decide to freeze up for no reason. It would happen usually at least once a week, and it was fairly common for it to lock up during the O/S boot. It would never lock up in BIOS though. After replacing every single piece of hardware in the machine, aside from the motherboard, nothing seemed to help. Upon further inspection of the motherboard, just before looking to buy a new one, I noticed bulging / leaking capacitors around the CPU socket. It looked like *all* of the most important caps were knackered. I am suprised it managed to turn on and stay up (for a while) at all. Just the other day I ordered some good brand name caps (Rubycon MCZ's) and replaced all but 3 of the original capacitors on the board. It's been up for 11 days with no signs of locking up. Before leaving it on again I tested it out, just by restarting a fair few times, to see if it continued to lock up during O/S boot. Not *once* did it lock up after the capacitor replacement jobby I did. It appears to have solved all my instability problems! It may be a long shot, but it's perhaps worth perhaps checking the capacitors and making sure they're in good condition. Even a slight bulge is the sign of a failing capacitor, as far as I am aware. The tops should be *perfectly* flat, and nice and shiny :-) Of course, you may not be comfortable taking a soldering iron to your board. If you do discover bad caps and would like to have them replaced by someone with experience, take a look at www.badcaps.net. They offer a paid service for capacitor replacement. Not exactly certified by any motherboard manufacturers or anything, but appears to have a lot of experience.