From owner-freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG Tue Sep 16 10:37:44 2003 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 72F8516A4B3 for ; Tue, 16 Sep 2003 10:37:44 -0700 (PDT) Received: from harrier.mail.pas.earthlink.net (harrier.mail.pas.earthlink.net [207.217.120.12]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id B822C43F75 for ; Tue, 16 Sep 2003 10:37:43 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from danielc@green-orb.com) Received: from user-37ka4dr.dsl.mindspring.com ([207.69.17.187] helo=brucha) by harrier.mail.pas.earthlink.net with esmtp (Exim 3.33 #1) id 19zJll-0001rX-00; Tue, 16 Sep 2003 10:37:41 -0700 From: "Daniel" Organization: 5am Designs To: Mike Tancsa , freebsd-stable@freebsd.org Date: Tue, 16 Sep 2003 13:36:44 -0400 MIME-Version: 1.0 Message-ID: <3F6711EC.3466.A264511@localhost> Priority: normal In-reply-to: <6.0.0.22.0.20030912133830.06a0a3e0@209.112.4.2> References: <3F61C337.29702.9F197DB@localhost> X-mailer: Pegasus Mail for Windows (v4.12a) Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Content-description: Mail message body Subject: Re: Phantom Reboots ( WAS : is stable stable yet? ) X-BeenThere: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: Production branch of FreeBSD source code List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 16 Sep 2003 17:37:44 -0000 On 12 Sep 2003 at 13:39, Mike Tancsa wrote: > If you cant get crash dumps then try at least hooking up a serial console > to it so at least you see the panic saved on your console. If you are not > seeing a panic, or if the panic is in random places, its probably hardware. I tried this... unfortunately the serial interface on that particular unit is having its own (apparently physical) issues... I've never had any good luck with serial ports actually working (and I am using a high-quality null-modem cable ;-) on any of my boxes. So far (see below)... its been up decently "okay" (1d+19h) on a very recent CVSup. Not to be petty or anything, but this unit was rock solid before I CVSupped it at some point, and handles build/install worlds like nobody's business... I would have a hard time believing it was hardware all of a sudden, but trust me, I hear you and haven't ruled that out yet. I just suspect its most likely to be some minor software thing that doesn't/didn't sit well with my config. The motherboard is a PCChips 747, which isn't a particularly good one but I wasn't having any notable problems on it up until these reboot issues. The memory is brand new (well, as of a month ago) Micron 128MB PC133 DIMMS (running with a normally-clocked PII-450 at a mere 100Mhz FSB). The NIC is an Intel 10/100 (uses fxp driver, running device polling). ACPI is NOT compiled into the kernel, and when I tried it, it caused all sorts of hell on my system like the system clock going backwards and all... so I gave up on that. APM *IS* enabled though, and doesn't seem to be problematic. Don't know if I need it but it hasn't seemed to ever be a problem before. Also, not to jinx it now, but its been up longer now (1 day 19 hours) than it has since the trouble started... on a CVSup from Sunday the 14th... seriously hoping it stays this way... (* nervously checks to see if its still up now... *). I don't have any $$ for a new mobo. But if the problems persist, I'll do things in this order unless advised otherwise: 1. Try to add another HDD with additional swap space for a crashdump (have a 4GB from another unit on standby -- its a SCSI system and SCSI HDDs don't come cheap for a personal machine - hence the reason I don't presently have enough swap space for the petty 384MB of RAM in it). 2. When it goes down, get a pciconf for you all (it won't let me right now -- says "access denied" -- I'm assuming because I'm running securelevels) and of course other relevant metrics if I can get any. 3. If the crashdump is useful, take appropriate action. If not, I'm going to try going back to RELENG_4_8 to see if that makes any difference. Any further suggestions? Apologies for all the noise on the list if its just my stupid hardware and nothing useful to anybody. :-) Peace, -- Daniel <>< > At 12:59 PM 12/09/2003, Daniel wrote: > >My machine has been rebooting silently (no panic or anything) every 24-36 > >hours since > >about two weeks ago. It wasn't doing that before then. >