Date: Wed, 11 May 2005 11:19:41 -0400 From: Christopher McGee <chris@xecu.net> To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Cc: RW <list-freebsd-2004@morbius.sent.com> Subject: Re: 5 day lockup on Densitron Message-ID: <4282228D.6070006@xecu.net> In-Reply-To: <5EEBE9C3C61D1142994C6B620C51E847110A92@depot.weblinkmo.com> References: <5EEBE9C3C61D1142994C6B620C51E847110A92@depot.weblinkmo.com>
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Richard J. Valenta wrote: >First off - thank you for both your replies... > >The manufacturer (Densitron) has little info available, especially >technological info. I'm going to continue to look for this, but do >either of you or anyone else have ideas on where to look for this? >Would it be called a 'watchdog' in the BIOS? > >Previous to this install there was a smaller hard disk and a Windows >2000 install. However, there was no regular reboot or anything else I >knew of. Of course, who knows if there's some kind of base Windows >'stroker' that I'm unaware of, or if there was something in place that >was part of the application it ran. > >Anyway - ideas on where to look, and subsequently disable, this (if its >there)? > >Thanks again, > >Richard > > > >-----Original Message----- >From: owner-freebsd-questions@freebsd.org >[mailto:owner-freebsd-questions@freebsd.org] On Behalf Of Clifton >Royston >Sent: Tuesday, May 10, 2005 12:39 AM >To: RW >Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org >Subject: Re: 5 day lockup on Densitron > >On Tue, May 10, 2005 at 04:30:15AM +0100, RW wrote: > > >>On Saturday 07 May 2005 02:00, Clifton Royston wrote: >> >> >>> What you describe >>>could conceivably be the result of a special counter or RTC chip >>>running as a "watchdog timer" with a count-down from boot time, and >>>generating some kind of special interrupt when that countdown >>> >>> >reaches > > >>>0. Watchdog devices are sometimes set up to require the application >>>software to "stroke" the timer periodically (reset it in software) >>> >>> >with > > >>>the intent to force a reset of the system (usually a reboot) after >>>such-and-such a period of time if not stroked. >>> >>> >>Watchdog timeouts are typically a fraction of a minute, a 5 day >> >> >watchdog > > >>timeout is very unlikely. >> >> > > Watchdogs are normally designed to be initialized at boot by the >software, and as FreeBSD doesn't know about it... > > It's a long-shot, but less so than "overheating" always happening to >build up and cause a reset randomly at exactly the same 5 day period of >time as somebody suggested. > > -- Clifton > > > I actually saw this same thing on 2 machines recently. I suggest either upgrading to 5.4(not sure if it will fix it), or reverting to 4.11. My company has not been able to justify putting any 5.3 boxes into production because they seem very unstable. In our case the lockups were random. Initially it was thought to be almost exactly every 2 days but later determined the lockups were random. I installed 4.11 on both of those machines and they have been up every since. Chris
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