STILL! Re: [GLLUG] desktop freezing??

[Richard Houser]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

Personally, I think this attempt is a little bit backwards.  Not having
an intermittent problem doesn't prove anything, but being able to
consistently repeat a problem does.  Instead of trying to diagnose the
lack of a potential heat problem, try to reproduce it.  You can do
simple things like unplug all but the chipset and power supply fans,
place the computer in a hot area, and wrap it in towels (everywhere but
exhaust or air intake areas) to minimize the case's ability to radiate
heat.  For starting this test at room temperature, your system SHOULD be
able to keep up without issue.  If you are experiencing overheating, you
should be able to reproduce the issue very reliably if it is truly heat
related.  If this doesn't change the frequency of the problem a LOT
(i.e. happening ten times as often), that isn't your underlying problem.

STeve Andre' wrote:
> On Thursday 06 December 2007 19:37:05 Benjamin Cathey wrote:
>>> ->> Try posting copies of the complete /var/log/dmesg and the section of
>>> ->> /var/log/messages from about the last 10 minutes before the freeze
>>> until ->> you shut it down or reboot.  If you have logins and things in
>>> these ->> logs, you might want to blank out IPs, usernames, etc.  This
>>> will end up ->> in public archives after all, so it's a good idea to
>>> review them.
>> I am not sure when it is happening or what to be looking for - everything
>> seemed fine after the new power supply and now it is happening again.  The
>> only thing I can figure is it MUST be overheating because it was running
>> fine with the new power supply until I put the case cover back on.
>>
>> I turned the fans up to 'medium' speed - that SHOULD be enough.
>>
>> Where can I check to see if an overheat caused this??
> 
> You are probably onto something.  I would run the computer for several
> days with the cover off, to make sure that it is indeed a temperature
> related problem.  If you can then see freezes after putting the cover
> back on you'll have a good idea, but only if the computer is rock solid.
> I'd use a week to determine this.
> 
> If this is the case, you have a part which is partly OK.  As long as its
> cold it's happy.  These things are a bitch to debug.  It might not even
> be the motherboard, though I'd  bet that it is.  At this point I think I'd
> try to find an identical motherboard and swap it out.  You can easily
> spend 50 hours tracking something like this down.  An infra-red heat
> imaging camera is useful for this.  I once had a friend who's company
> had one and I got permission to take a problematic radio there, and
> found that a tiny resistor in the receiver was getting too hot and
> causing distortion.  If I hadn't had the camera it would have taken a
> long tme to figure that out.
> 
> Have you run something like memtest86 on the unit with the case on?
> If it doesn't crash but finds errors that will say something.  If you're
> running with multiple sodimms or whatever, try running with  just one.
> 
> --STeve Andre'
> _______________________________________________
> linux-user mailing list
> linux-user at egr.msu.edu
> http://mailman.egr.msu.edu/mailman/listinfo/linux-user

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.7 (GNU/Linux)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Mandriva - http://enigmail.mozdev.org

iD8DBQFHWgOTUMkt1ZRwL1MRAiKXAJ9q0gZhu7MmFugCr0XdlEaMLRHV1ACgiOTJ
8ZdBlOk1BTj+FL7DY0bUh+I=
=Tr8B
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----