Date: Mon, 24 Aug 1998 16:56:47 -0400 From: Lee Cremeans <lee@st-lcremean.tidalwave.net> To: John Baldwin <jbaldwin@freedomnet.com>, freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Hardware problems.... Message-ID: <19980824165647.A1791@st-lcremean.tidalwave.net> In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSD/.3.91.980824114511.25542A-100000@freedomnet.com>; from John Baldwin on Mon, Aug 24, 1998 at 03:57:34PM -0400 References: <Pine.BSD/.3.91.980824114511.25542A-100000@freedomnet.com>
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On Mon, Aug 24, 1998 at 03:57:34PM -0400, John Baldwin wrote: > Hi all, I've been having some hardware difficulties and I would > appreciate any suggestions. Here goes: > > I have two computers, and both of them are misbehaving, so I'll go over > them one at a time. > > Computer 1 > - AMD 486dx4/100 with 32 MB RAM > - Maxtor 234 MB and Quantum 162 MB hard drives > - VLB video card and multi I/O controller > - 3Com 3c503 8-bit Ethernet adapter > > Problems: > - The motherboard BIOS supports LBA, but I'm not sure if the I/O card > does. I tried putting a 2 Gig hard drive in, and it worked ok at first, > but then it started getting errors (status 50 and status 59). The drive > doesn't work in my other computer anymore (where it used to live) either, > so I think that drive is bad. I bought a new UDMA 2.8 Gig drive, and the > BIOS detects the geometry correctly (cyls, heads, etc.) but says that it > is only 700MB in size. The kernel gets the drive size right, and I did > get it fdisk'd and label'd. However, when I tried to write to it I got > status 50 and status 58 errors. On my other machine the drive worked > fine, so I'm guessing that it is a problem with my I/O card? Bleh. In my experience, all the VLB IDE card I've used have had penchants for nasty timing bugs, which would explain the errors you're seeing (status 50 means the drive is ready and waiting for a command, status 58 means the drive is waiting to send data--you should not normally see these as errors!) I would try another card, personally; VLB *can* work, but it's hit-or-miss at best, and a pain in the rear in any case. See if the card has any timing-adjust jumpers on it; that may solve your problem. If not, and if another VLB card does not behave, you may have to drop down to an ISA card. As for the BIOS...that sounds like your BIOS is hitting a 2048-cylinder limitation. This doesn't matter for FreeBSD as long as you keep the kernel within reach of the BIOS. > Computer 2: > - Pentium 187/75, 32 MB RAM > - Onboard PCI EIDE/LPT/COM > - Maxtor 6.8 Gig UDMA and Seagate 1.7 Gig EIDE drives > - Pioneer 24x ATAPI CD-ROM > - 3Com 3c509 combo NIC > - non-PnP SB16 > - AIC 6360 SCSI adapter w/ external Zip drive > - 250 Watt power supply > > Problems: > - I recently replaced a 2 Gig hard drive mentioned above with the 6.8 Gig > drive. It worked fine for about two or three days. Then it started > locking up while copying data from the CD to the 6.8 gig hard drive. At > firs, it would only lock up after about ten minutes of straight copying, > but the problem grew progressively worse and right now it locks up after > about 2 minutes. IT does this in both Win95 and FreeBSD. When it locks, > it locks up real hard, in 95 I can't do jack squat, and in FreeBSD, the > only response I got was a series of beeps when I tried to change > terminals to kill the cp process. The computer has in the past two or > three days taken an even weirder twist: it boots up fine, but kdm cores > out with a signal 11, and so does tcsh, which I happen to use for all my > login shells. At the moment I'm leaving the system off to minimize the > possibility of corrupting my data. I thought it might be my power > supply, but I don't see why a 250 watt power supply can't handle that > type of load. Could it be my memory? It sounds like your processor may be overheating--you did say you had it at 187 MHz, right? Run that copying test, and see how hot the heat sink gets. It should get very warm, but not hot enough to burn--if it gets really hot, or does not get very hot at all, you got troubles. The first case means you need a better heatsink (you have either a shot, disconnected, or non-existent colling fan), the second means the heat sink isn't making good contact with the chip and may need sealant grease (most good electronics stores have this). -- Lee Cremeans -- Manassas, VA, USA (WakkyMouse on DALnet and WTnet) A! JW223 YWD+++^ri P&B++ SL+++^i GDF B&M KK--i MD+++i P++ I++++ Did $++ E5/10/70/3c/73ac/95/96 H2 PonPippi Ay77 M | mailto:lcremean@tidalwave.net http://st-lcremean.tidalwave.net | Powered by FreeBSD 3.0-CURRENT To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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