On Sat, 2002-10-12 at 18:01, Ben Rosenberg wrote:

* The Purple Tiger (Jon@tigersden.demon.co.uk) [021012 14:56]: ::My Athlon runs at 48 deg Centigrade consistently [according to the BIOS when I frequently reboot due to issues with kernels/windows ;o)] :: ::My impression, after much tweaking and hardware changes, is that it is the 2.4.x series of kernels. There seem to be no problems with 2.2.x kernels on this - no lockups for at least 24 hours, but when I changed to 2.4.18 / 2.4.19 it frequently freezes solid. :: ::Maybe mine is a different issue, but I do not know. :: ::On another note - I have another machine which has a :spit: Cyrix 333 with a not fantastic gfx card [2d only, 1 MB on it!], 64 MB RAM running SuSE 8.0 as a mailserver/DNS server/webserver. Not one freeze.... :: ::Maybe the 2.4.x series of kernels have some issues with a piece of hardware and X? ::

Well, since this is the same version of X but a different kernel that could be the issue. But starting Mutt froze it the last time. So I don't know.

If this freezing shit continues then this is no better the Wintendo as far as I'm concerned.

Now the bloody printer is spitting out garbage no matter what I print. Oh this is just one hell of a day. I have not had this many stupid issues since SuSE 6.0 or WinNT 4.0sp2. I'm at loss this borders on the stupid.

thank you ben.. i still enyoy 7.2 :-) :-)))))) if you had so many issues then i will continue a little longer with 7.2 or move to slack :-)))

* Anders Johansson (andjoh2001@netscape.net) [021012 18:04]: -> ->I'll bet it's those ATI drivers you're using. Go back to nvidia. My ->system is solid as a rock :) -> I'm using the same XFree86 4.2.0 drivers that I've used under 7.3, 8.0 and now 8.1. I'm not using the binary only drivers...they don't have any for the 7xxx series. I've replaced the default X . files in my home directory with copies from a dummie account that I created. We'll see if it was a setting that I used before but doesn't work now. I had more issues with nVidia's binary drivers then I care to talk about. I had 4 co-workers machines simply not work with the nVidia drivers and after a couple days of messing with these boxes I came into work the following day and MY workstation suddenly with no help from me started erroring in the same mannor as my co-workers. Even though I had had this setup for the better part of 2.5 months. It was sudden blow up. After I switched both my home machine and work machine to ATI cards I had no issues. I have the same setup at work still and it runs like a champ. It must be something else. And it only happens in X. So I figured it was a . file that I had in my ~/. -- Ben Rosenberg ---===---===---===--- mailto:ben@whack.org Tell me what you believe.. I tell you what you should see.

On Sat, Oct 12, 2002 at 09:46:16PM -0400, Patrick beat on the keyboard:

On Saturday 12 October 2002 21:13, Ben Rosenberg wrote:

...

* Anders Johansson (andjoh2001@netscape.net) [021012 18:04]: -> ->I'll bet it's those ATI drivers you're using. Go back to nvidia. My ->system is solid as a rock :) ->

I'm using the same XFree86 4.2.0 drivers that I've used under 7.3, 8.0 and now 8.1. I'm not using the binary only drivers...they don't have any for the 7xxx series.

I've replaced the default X . files in my home directory with copies from a dummie account that I created. We'll see if it was a setting that I used before but doesn't work now.

I had more issues with nVidia's binary drivers then I care to talk about. I had 4 co-workers machines simply not work with the nVidia drivers and after a couple days of messing with these boxes I came into work the following day and MY workstation suddenly with no help from me started erroring in the same mannor as my co-workers. Even though I had had this setup for the better part of 2.5 months. It was sudden blow up. After I switched both my home machine and work machine to ATI cards I had no issues. I have the same setup at work still and it runs like a champ. It must be something else. And it only happens in X. So I figured it was a . file that I had in my ~/. ======================

Don't worry Ben, Anders is just pulling your chain about the cards. In reality, Anders wishes he had an ATI card too! ;o)

Patrick

I may have to agree with Anders on this one, my nVidia GeForce 440 go sure runs nicely at 1600x1200 in console mode and X, maybe it is the ATI card ;) -- _ _ __ _____ _____ ___| |_ | '__| / __\ \ /\ / / _ \/ _ \ __| -o) | | _ \__ \\ V V / __/ __/ |_ /\\ |_|(_) |___/ \_/\_/ \___|\___|\__|_\_v rsweet@garagenetworks.net "unix soit qui mal y pense."

* Robert Sweet (rsweet@garagenetworks.net) [021012 15:05]: ::> ::I have had several lock up due to acpi. If run apm no ::problems, turn acpi, system locks up on shutdown. I don't ::know if this related to what you are experiencing, but I am ::not happy with the lock ups either. I have "apm=off acpi=off vga=normal" as the default boot parameters. It still locks up randomly. -- Ben Rosenberg ---===---===---===--- mailto:ben@whack.org Tell me what you believe.. I tell you what you should see.

* Terry Eck (tleck@mindspring.com) [021013 06:50]: ->Ben Rosenberg wrote: ->> ->> ->> I have "apm=off acpi=off vga=normal" as the default boot parameters. It ->> still locks up randomly. ->> ->> -- ->I am running SuSE 7.3 and had random lockups while in X. I have an AMD ->Athlon CPU and what fixed it was setting mem=nopentium. I tried the ->disableapic and apm=off but that did not work until I used the ->mem=nopentium. ->I don't know what processor your using but if it is an AMD Athlon you ->might ->try that option. In any even please post a final solution if you get it ->working. I am very interested in upgrading but I may wait until 9.0 ->comes out so I can upgrade to 8.x (I don't believe in bleeding edge). I believe 2.4.18 fixed the issue that the kernel option mem=nopentium was a workaround for. But thanks anyway :) -- Ben Rosenberg ---===---===---===--- mailto:ben@whack.org Tell me what you believe.. I tell you what you should see.

The 02.10.12 at 15:03, Robert Sweet wrote:

I have had several lock up due to acpi. If run apm no problems, turn acpi, system locks up on shutdown. I don't know if this related to what you are experiencing, but I am not happy with the lock ups either.

Yes, I had locks ups just at shutdown, using suse 7.3 with kernel 2.4.10, and some less with 2.4.16. A correspondant of mine reported having the frezes consistently when closing kde. The problem is not new, only it's got worse in suse 8.1. I did some tests compiling the kernel with different options. acpi works better if apic is turned on as well; or was it the other way round? I can not use acpi, though, because then the machine will not power off (missing daemons). -- Cheers, Carlos Robinson

* Rachel Greenham (rachel@linuxgrrls.org) [021012 15:50]: ::> ::I don't know, sure looks like a hardware fault to me. Like duff memory. ::Does 8.1 still have the memtest86 option on the boot CD / DVD? If so ::give it a go, or give it a go on the 8.0 version. It is possible a fault ::has developed *since* or *while* you were installing 8.1. It's always ::possible you zapped a chip when you had the case open, or a power ::surge... So, put 8.0 back on it and see what happens, but try memtest86 ::first. It could be. But I had a fresh install of 8.0 on this box for about 10 days prior to 8.1 because my root drive died and instead of reinstalling 7.3 and patching it. I just installed 8.0 and figured I'd upgrade. And if the upgrade went bad then I'd do a fresh install. So the machine ran as advertized with 8.0 on it for 10 days without an issue of any kind. Then I went to 8.1 w/ it's new kernel and new GCC compiled pkgs and everything went wanky. I would think it was just me, but with all the other issues I've see on the list. I'm not so sure. The machine is on a 1000watt UPS (only machine connected)..and since I didn't open the case for the 10 days that it was running 8.0 I doubt it. ::You say you switched acpi off, or I'd have suspected that. Yes, as did I. :/ ::Maybe you have DMA related problems? Earlier versions of SuSE (in my ::experience anyway) defaulted to having DMA turned off, and had to be set ::up manually (hdparm command in /etc/init.d/boot.local) but suse 8.1 has ::selected what I would consider the "right" settings for my drive by ::itself. Maybe on yours it's done the wrong thing and you need to ::manually set more conservative settings. In the first instance just turn ::DMA off in yast2 and see if the freezing stops (bear with the slower ::disk access for the time being). This could be it. I'll give it a shot and report what I find. ::Last June I had very similar random crashes start appearing once I ::upgraded to kernel 2.4.4 on disk access through the onboard Promise ::IDE/RAID controller *only* when DMA was enabled. I got to be able to ::reproduce it consistently by doing a big bonnie test (ie: using the disk ::subsystem so heavily that it raised the chances of it happening during ::the test to nearly 100%). In the end I didn't wait for this to be fixed, ::but switched to using the on-board VIA IDE controller instead, though ::the original problem is very likely fixed by now. (the whole sorry tale ::is archived in the lkml) You're probably not experiencing the exact same ::problem, but DMA may still not be set up correctly. Or it might be a ::newly-introduced bug in the 2.4.19 kernel - or the *SuSE* 2.4.19 kernel ::- for your IDE controller. Well, the weird thing is that I compiled ncftp and about 10 other programs lastnight. Lots of io there and tons of memory used since I did several of the compiles at once. The failure here seems to only occur while in X. I could be some setting that I have in the X related config files in ~/ because those are the same as they have been since 7.3 ..but with the same version of X 4.2.0. :) ::BTW, the hw file you said was attached, wasn't :-) Probably suse's mail ::server stripping it. No, I'm a moron and my wife was having a hissy fit at me when I was sending that email. I simply forgot to attach. It's attached now. Cheers! -- Ben Rosenberg ---===---===---===--- mailto:ben@whack.org Tell me what you believe.. I tell you what you should see.

->Hang on, was the install of 8.1 an upgrade from 8.0 or a fresh install? -> ->(I never trust the upgrades.) I don't usually trust them either, but the upgrade I did on my workstation in the office (same video card) worked like a charm. I did an upgrade 1st..then out of frustration did a full fresh reinstall. I thought it could have been a faulty CDROM drive. It wasn't and it still screwed up. ->You *might* have a sickness in your graphics card itself though - memory ->in the card might be at fault, not in that part that's used for VGA, but ->when things get more exciting. I just reinstalled 8.0. It works like a charm. *shrug* ->BTW I'm not much of an expert on PC hardware, just tend to be fairly ->good at zoning in on faults. So the hwinfo file won't give me many more ->clues, but someone else out there might see something. If I can find something that's screwed up..I will. It's knack. :) ->I'm still *sure* this is hardware related. As we well know, Linux just ->doesn't crash like this unless there's a hardware (or hardware ->configuration) problem. Oh sure it does. Poorly compile software can screw up right quick. I'm not say 8.1 is poorly compiled. I'm saying 8.1 hates something about my machine that I can't figure out. For example...during the 8.0 install my monitor was seen and setup correctly and under 8.1's version of sax2 it couldn't see it correctly with a flash light and directions. :) ->Go pay more attention to your wife you... man, you. :-P I did when she got back from her girlie clothing swap. ;) -- Ben Rosenberg ---===---===---===--- mailto:ben@whack.org Tell me what you believe.. I tell you what you should see.

* Anders Johansson (andjoh2001@netscape.net) [021013 04:49]: -> ->It might be acpi. That changed a lot between 8.0 and 8.1 apparently. You ->might try either "acpi=off" or "pci=acpi" as kernel parameter. I had to ->do that with mantel's latest kernels otherwise almost nothing worked right. -> I tried it with them both off and it still didn't work. Thing is I'm on call 24/7 so I can't have my machine locking up in the middle of fixing something at work. If I had another machine then I might have even tried a newer .20 kernel in the hopes it fixed it or even reverted to a .18 kernel. For now it's just best I use 8.0. Something changed between 8.0 and 8.1 that doesn't quite sit right with my machine. It's cool. Thanks :) -- Ben Rosenberg ---===---===---===--- mailto:ben@whack.org Tell me what you believe.. I tell you what you should see.

* R. R. (landy@despiertapr.com) [021013 09:35]: ->On Sun, 2002-10-13 at 12:28, Ben Rosenberg wrote: ->> * Anders Johansson (andjoh2001@netscape.net) [021013 04:49]: ->> -> ->> ->It might be acpi. That changed a lot between 8.0 and 8.1 apparently. You ->> ->might try either "acpi=off" or "pci=acpi" as kernel parameter. I had to ->> ->do that with mantel's latest kernels otherwise almost nothing worked right. ->> -> -> -> ->suse are you listening!!!!! you need good beta tester of the caliber of ->ben !!!!! Yeah, hire someone to screw things up really good. ;) *laugh* -- Ben Rosenberg ---===---===---===--- mailto:ben@whack.org Tell me what you believe.. I tell you what you should see.