Server 'freezing' - update - Resolved?
David Merwin
yellowdog-general@lists.terrasoftsolutions.com
Mon Jan 20 19:43:05 2003
I strongly recomed powermax.com. There I just bought RAM from them and
they were $50 cheaper than any where else. Plus, they are in Oregon, so
no tax.
Tellem Dave Merwin sent ya.
Rob Brandt wrote:
>Some of you asked to keep informed on this issue. I believe that I have
>resolved the issue: Bad RAM.
>
>I upgraded memory on this machine several months ago. It did not start crashing
>until about 2 months after, but as I was shutting down and rebooting fairly
>frequently during that period since I was still building the server out. Maybe
>that prevented the crashes(?).
>
>I any case, after someone here suggested it might be a RAM problem, I tried to
>go into OS9 to see if there were any RAM testing utilities there; I immediately
>started getting bus errors and hard crashes. Apparently OS9 is much more
>sensitive to RAM issues than YDL. So operating on the theory that RAM really
>was the issue, I starting swapping sticks of various sizes in the system to see
>which ones OS9 would like. I found 3 that worked pretty consistently, put them
>in together, and booted back into YDL. That was 4 weeks ago as of this
>afternoon. It's had not even a hiccup since then, whereas previously it was
>crashing every few days, and hadn't made it longer then 2 weeks.
>
>So. Now I need new RAM. The 'good' sticks I'm running now are only about
>384mb, and I want it maxed out to 768. Anyone have any good suggestions of
>where I can get a good price on quality RAM?. This is for a biege G3 tower.
>
>Rob
>
>
>Quoting Rob Brandt <bronto@csd-bes.net>:
>
>
>
>>The server was frozen again Monday morning, so the suggested fix
>>of replacing the motherboard battery didn't do the job.
>>
>>I hope someone has a clue about this, or can suggest a stragegy to
>>diagnose the problem. Here's the latest information I can offer;
>>don't know if it's relevent or not:
>>
>>Half of the time that it happens it's been on a Monday morning
>>before work. The rest of the time except once it's been on
>>another day before work. Once it was in the evening after work.
>>It's never happened while I've been here. The server doesn't get
>>a lot of traffic, but when it does it's usually in bunches. I
>>suppose inactivity may be a contributing factor. I frequently
>>check my mail during the day. But come to think of it, I have a
>>utility checking a special pop account for new messages every 15
>>minutes all the time.
>>
>>Right now I have a problem with the server that may or may not be
>>related. While sorting my mail this morning, I noticed it beig
>>very slow. Gnome was running, and I have several "load" panels
>>running in the tool bar - RAM, CPU and Net. I noticed that CPU
>>was running at 100% and not varying. I tried to start gtop to see
>>what was sucking cycles, but it was unresponsive. I had a console
>>window and browser window open, and I closed those, and noticed
>>that the icons on the desktop didn't redraw. Attempting to log
>>out, that was unresponsive too. On my desktop Mac, I browsed to
>>Webmin on the server and viewed the Running applications to see
>>what was sucking up the cycles; it was Courier-Imap. I killed
>>that, restarted Courier-Imap, and the CPU load panel on the server
>>went down to normal levels. But Gnome itself is still
>>unresponsive. I can't start applications, log out, the icons on
>>the desktop still haven't redrawn. The toolbar is responsive and
>>the load panels inside of it are active.
>>
>>Like I said, I don't know if this is related to the server freeze
>>or not. When the server freezes, I have no network services but I
>>do now. When the server freezes, the CRT won't wake up, but does
>>now.
>>
>>(dramatic pause)
>>
>>OK, new information. As I was trying to send the above, it was
>>apparent that some of my mail services weren't working because it
>>wouldn't send. Other network services such as apache were OK. So
>>I decided to reboot the server; when it rebooted it said that the
>>file systems weren't unmounted cleanly and forced a file system
>>check. There were unexpected inconsistencies, so I had to run
>>fsck. There were several inode problems, after they were fixed it
>>rebooted again and started OK. I'm back up and running.
>>
>>But it appears that some questions have been answered: namely that
>>the "unexpected inconsistencies" were not the result of power
>>off/on rebooting I had to resort to when the system freezes, since
>>it happened now after I did a normal reboot. Quite possibly the
>>unexpected inconsistencies are the cause of the freezing.
>>
>>Any ideas on further diagnosis?
>>
>>Thanks
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>>I am having a problem for the last month or so and don't know
>>>what to do about it. It's happened 4 times in November, and
>>>last night as well.
>>>
>>>The server "freezes". It is completely unresponsive to the
>>>keyboard, http, mail services, telnet, ssh, and ftp. I can
>>>successfully ping it.
>>>
>>>When this has happened, I end up having to shut it down at the
>>>power button and reboot. When rebooting it goes through the
>>>filesystem check and often encounters and Unexpected
>>>Inconsistency, requiring me to run fsck. After going through
>>>that, it fixes several things
>>>(sometimes a lot, sometimes a little) and then loads properly
>>>and all is well. For a while. Then it does it again in 2 to
>>>14 days. I don't know whether the unexpected inconsistency is
>>>the cause or the result of the "freeze".
>>>
>>>Are there any diagnostics that I can perform to discover the
>>>problem? If there are file system errors causing this, are
>>>there utilities that can be run that will prevent it or
>>>minimize the risk?
>>>
>>>Any advice appreciated. Running:
>>>
>>>Beige G3 Tower;
>>>YDL 2.2
>>>768 MB Ram
>>>YDL boot disk : original 4gig IDE (hda8)
>>>Data disk for /home and /var: New (2 mos) 60 gig IBM (hdb2 & 3)
>>>
>>>All of the above partitions have exhibited the Unexpected
>>>Inconsistency.
>>>
>>>Rob
>>>_______________________________________________
>>>yellowdog-general mailing list
>>>yellowdog-general@lists.terrasoftsolutions.com
>>>http://lists.terrasoftsolutions.com/mailman/listinfo/yellowdog-general
>>>
>>>
>>
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>>
>>
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--
David Merwin
dave@asulos.com
(541) 684-0776