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On 14 Jan, Harry Putnam wrote: |
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> I'm experiencing a problem where during an X session the machine |
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> inexplicably freezes up... networking along with mouse keyboard etc. |
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> No access is then possible via ssh or any other way other than a hard |
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> reboot. |
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> |
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> I've attempted to debug the problem by first searching the logs. But |
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> not finding anything I recognize as a clue. |
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> |
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> I've inserted a line like this in /etc/syslog.conf |
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> cat /etc/syslog.conf |
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> [...] |
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> *.* -/var/log/debug.log |
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> [...] |
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> |
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> and then created a tiny script called by cron every 5 minutes that |
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> simply pinged an external host and reported the results by way of |
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> piping to `logger', guaranteeing it would appear in the system logs . |
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> |
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> Then after a freeze up and reboot, search the logs for the most recent |
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> successful ping and see what happened after that. (The freeze up freezes |
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> networking too so the ping would then fail). And Hopefully I'd see |
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> something of note between the last successful ping and the reboot. |
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> |
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> But I see absolutely nothing of note. |
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> |
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> The freeze does not appear to obey any particular time frame after a |
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> boot, only that sooner or later a freeze up will occur. |
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> |
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> Apparently there is nothing happening that merits a log entry. |
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> |
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> Its been going on for a goodly while and I've just been rebooting as |
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> needed ... I haven't been really active on the machine for a while so |
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> it was easy to get along with, but now I need to do more work and so |
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> the problem is a major stumbling block. |
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> |
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|
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A few months, ago, I had similar symptoms. |
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It turned out to be a defective AMD Phenom CPU |
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(a very tricky error since all hardware tests passed) |
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I guess it's a cache coherence problem (the Phenom has 4 cores). |
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Luckily it was quite a new machine so my dealer |
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replaced the CPU. The problem didn't occur ever since. |
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|
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While searching the net for a reason of failure I came accross |
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messages about failing graphics chips / or graphics drivers. |
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Perhaps you try an open source driver for your graphics card |
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and see if the problem still occurs. |
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|
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(Before I suspected the CPU, I have tortured memory and I have |
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even replaced the motherboard) |
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|
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To "exclude" a software problem, try booting from a |
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SystemRescue-CD |
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http://www.sysresccd.org/Main_Page |
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|
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It's Gentoo based and sports an X-Server. |
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|
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That are the problems that makes one crazy! |
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|
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Helmut. |
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|
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-- |
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Helmut Jarausch |
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|
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Lehrstuhl fuer Numerische Mathematik |
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RWTH - Aachen University |
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D 52056 Aachen, Germany |
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