Date: Sun, 20 May 2007 12:22:18 -0700 From: Garrett Cooper <youshi10@u.washington.edu> To: Edward Ruggeri <ruggeri@uchicago.edu> Cc: free-bsd-questions <freebsd-questions@freebsd.org> Subject: Re: Random Restarts? Message-ID: <46509FEA.5060707@u.washington.edu> In-Reply-To: <op.tsm2jz2l7qi7tm@localhost> References: <op.tsmuvzql7qi7tm@localhost> <20070520164136.GA65659@slackbox.xs4all.nl> <46509204.2010803@u.washington.edu> <op.tsm2jz2l7qi7tm@localhost>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
Edward Ruggeri wrote: > On Sun, 20 May 2007 13:23:00 -0500, Garrett Cooper > <youshi10@u.washington.edu> wrote: > >> Roland Smith wrote: >>> On Sun, May 20, 2007 at 11:03:25AM -0500, Edward Ruggeri wrote: >>>> Hi, >>>> >>>> My system randomly reboots, usually in the evening. It is >>>> definitely not a soft reboot, since the filesystems don't get >>>> properly dismounted. My suspicion is that it is a heat related >>>> issue -- I do leave the computer running just about all day long, >>>> and it has started to get warm. Then again, it's coolest in the >>>> evening... >>> Try and install the mbmon port, and see if it works on your machine. If >>> so, start a cron job that appends mbmon output to a file say every 15 >>> minutes. If it's a heat buildup issue in a monitored component, it >>> would show. >>> I wonder though. My machine usually doesn't need a day to heat up after >>> a cold start. An hour or so usually suffices. >>> Other causes could be a spike in the line voltage due to a large device >>> switching on or off nearby. Or an underrated power supply overloaded >>> through a cron job. >>> Roland >> >> Also, check to see if your memory doesn't have any errors. That can >> cause reboots from time to time if either the memory controller is >> bad, or the memory itself is bad. >> >> Also, this heat issue could be true for your hard drives. I've seen >> some of my faster drives get up to 140 degrees F (before I bought fans >> for them), then force the workstation to hard reboot. This was when I >> was doing a lot of disk access with them, too, since normal idling >> didn't head up the drives enough. >> >> Just curious: >> a. What's your Processor (speed, vendor)? >> b. Who made your motherboard? >> c. Who made your RAM? >> >> Thanks, >> -Garrett > > Thanks everyone! > > Athlon X2 4200+ proc (2.2GHz, maybe?) > DFI nF4 infinity SLI motheboard > G.Skill RAM (2GB) > Antec True Power II (550W) > > I'll use MemTest or somesuch to test my RAM latter today for errors. > > The drives sit right infront of the air-intake fans for the system, so > there's a breeze that flows by them constantly. However, additional > cooling certainly might be necessary. Perhaps, it is possible that > rTorrent is doing a lot of reads and writes to the drive, stressing it, > which may be why the problem seems to have come up around the time I > started using rTorrent. > > I think my plan will be so: > 1.) Continue running mbmon until I get a restart, and then check to see > if there was a voltage drop (or, less likely, a heat spike). > 2.) Then, run MemTest86+ for a day or so, checking for RAM problems. > > I don't have a probe to measure the hard drive temps, but if 1&2 fail, > I'll arrange better cooling for the drives, I guess. If it's a driver > issue, is there any way to find it? I haven't installed any new > hardware recently, and hadn't had this problem until maybe a week ago. > > Sorry to clog up the freeBSD listhost with (likely) a hardware issue. I > can move to another listhost if you guys think I should. I'm not a big AMD user, but I would guess given the list of features on the motherboard's site that you have some sort of hardware supported CPU frequency control. I would hunt around your BIOS, see if you can enable that functionality, and see if that solves the problem. I will say that your MB and memory vendors sound like small 3rd party groups, and I've faced a lot of issues with those types of vendors; that's why I stick with select ASUS MBs, and Corsair or similar memory vendors. -Garrett
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?46509FEA.5060707>