Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2001 11:31:58 +0100 From: Nils Holland <nils@tisys.org> To: Munish Chopra <mchopra@engmail.uwaterloo.ca> Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: ECS-K7S5A motherboard stability issues Message-ID: <20011217113158.B43375@tisys.org> In-Reply-To: <20011217023844.C333@rn-re116a13.uwaterloo.ca>; from mchopra@engmail.uwaterloo.ca on Mon, Dec 17, 2001 at 02:38:44AM -0500 References: <20011217023844.C333@rn-re116a13.uwaterloo.ca>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
I would, first of all, do the "standard procedure" for such kinds of errors. Here are some kinds I tend to make sure if I have problems like those you described: 1) Are all cards seated properly? This included memory modules - I once had a piece of memory that obviously had a small piece of dust on one of its contacts, and after the computer ran for an hour and the module had gotten hot and expanded, this piece of dust caused the module to lose contact, which made the system crash or reboot. Taking out all cards and memory modules and blowing slightly over their sockets might help. 2) What about your BIOS settings? I have seen various problems with memory settings that are too tight. Random reboots and crashed can occur. Recently, I discovered something particularely interesting: On one of my machines, I can set the memory timings to "Turbo" and everything seems to work well, including "make buildworld". However compiling C++ sources (in my example, some piece of software required by the doc-project package) would cause the compiler to complain about "internal compiler errors". After setting the memory timings to "Medium", these problems did not occur again. I tried several times, it was clear Turbo=Problems, Medium=Works fine. So, the morale behind this: Try some more conservative memory (and overall) settings in the BIOS and see if that helps. 3) Every now and then, an undersized power supply has caused me problems as described by you. On most machines these days, you should have no less that 300 W. 4) Proper system cooling is very important! I have seen occasionally that in a unproperly cooled systems, various cards got to hot and causes problems. Generally, I have always been happy with following AMD's cooling recommendations, which are to put (at least) one rear exhaust fan in addition to the power supply fan into the system. That's it! I tend to check these things before I actually assume that there's a serious software or hardware defect. If these points do not help, the only good way to isolate the problem is by swapping parts between two machines (on the one hand, the one with the problem, on the other hand a machine that works fine). That way, you should be able to exactly isolate the part that causes you problems. Good luck! Nils On Mon, Dec 17, 2001 at 02:38:44AM -0500, Munish Chopra stood up and spoke: > About a month ago I got a hold of my new machine: > > ECS-K7S5A motherboard > Thunderbird 1200 > 256 MB DDR-SDRAM > 40GB IBM HD > NVIDIA GF2 MX/400 64MB video card > (that should be all the important stuff) > > Now, I've been having some rather nasty stability issues with this > machine, and was wondering whether anyone out there has been having the > same type of issues. > > It seems to 'randomly reboot', like it did just five minutes ago. At > first I thought these were related to I/O or so (FTP transfers would > cause lockups/reboots, watching movies too, though I suspect this is an > mplayer stability issue), but now they just seem to occur whenever they > feel like. My uptime before the last one was just above three days, the > longest I've had it running. > > Additionally (and this might be the source of the problem, I don't > know), my ATA100 controller is only recognized as ATA33, dmesg output: > > atapci0: <SiS 5591 ATA33 controller> port 0xff00-0xff0f at device 2.5 on > pci0 > > I saw a thread on -hackers a few weeks ago that might resolve the > controller issue, but I'm not sure. Any pointers or hints would be > appreciated (or if I in some way can give you necessary information, > please tell me). Sorry about the rather lame report, I haven't had time > to dig around though. > > Please cc me on replies, not currently subscribed. > > Thanks. > > -- > -Munish > > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org > with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message > -- Nils Holland Ti Systems - FreeBSD in Tiddische, Germany http://www.tisys.org * nils@tisys.org To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?20011217113158.B43375>