On 08/10/2015 09:02 AM, Anton Aylward wrote:
You need to establish basic motherboard integrity, Cpu integrity. There are many self-test, memory test and so on you can use. My dell has short-form and long form test BIOS settings. Check you BIOS for options. It may give you details.
You guys are great! Always good to smile at all the imaginable/unimaginable situations... CPU integrity seems fine. With drives pulled, it POSTS fine and gets to the point of "Insert Operating System Disk and press Any Key". Pop the install CD in, hit the "Any Key" and bam, I'm running linux just fine, this really seems limited to disk detection/disk controller - for whatever reason. This motherboard is also equipped with 16 status LEDs, 4-11 (in 4 groups of 2) give the POST status and then go all green when booting the OS. With no drives attached, they flow through the light sequences ending all green. Popping in the CD and booting works like a champ. When the POST fails, they are stuck green, green, red, red, which according to the manual indicates "Initializing Hard Drive Controller" (makes sense). I have inserted spare drives into the empty bays to confirm that the PSU is providing power (it is). The PSU is a fairly reliable HEC Zephyr 750, so it looks to be powering the drives fine. However, the only thing common to all drives, aside from the controller, is power. If it is a power issue, then it has to be a dirty power or partial power that allows the disk to spin, but may be preventing it from properly powering all its circuitry to respond to the drive initialization. Pretty bizarre. The board looks in tact, I've been over all CAPS and there are none puffy/bulging/etc that I can see (I've seen plenty of bad caps before). The fact that the board runs completely through the POST and operates fine when booted from the CD really adds to the puzzle. Partial PSU failure in one of the power pins to the board? Partial PSU failure in the power leg that is powering the SATA connections? Like I said in my original post, nothing eventful happened, it was just like somebody turned a switch to the disk controller off (or at least that is how it appears) causing the buss error/core dump. It's happily running now booted from the CD. I think I'll give everything a sniff test. There is no pronounced "I'm burned alive" smell, but it does smell like a box that has been operating 24-7 for 7 years or so. If you have any other thoughts, let me know. -- David C. Rankin, J.D.,P.E. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org