Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watmath!uunet!wuarchive!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!usc!srhqla!kosman!kevin From: kevin@kosman.UUCP (Kevin O'Gorman) Newsgroups: unix-pc.general Subject: Dying machine? Message-ID: <1057@kosman.UUCP> Date: 31 Dec 89 01:32:51 GMT Reply-To: kevin@kosman.UUCP (Kevin O'Gorman) Organization: K.O.'s Manor - Vital Computer Systems, Oxnard, CA 93035 Lines: 53 I wonder if this machine is running on anything stronger than a wing and a prayer, and I would like some advice from someone more knowlegable than me. It's a fire-sale 3b1, running continuously since I bought it a couple years ago. A month ago, I heard noises that sounded like the drive going weird, but the noises went away. It did get me to back up in a big hurry, though. For a while, not too clear in my mind, I've been having the system freeze on me about once a week. It's odd, too: typically, I haven't used the system for a while, I sit down and break into the screen saver okay, and the system seems to track the mouse. The keyboard may or may not be dead, depending, but I can generally point and click (yes, the UA is usually around). I get a little bit of disk activity, but that grinds to a halt, and the system just stares at me until I reboot it. I'm running 3.51 with the fixdisk kernel, and I know this thing used to stay up nearly forever. I didn't worry about it too much though; the crashes weren't getting any more frequent. Then, I was getting ready for Xmas, and decided that since this thing sits with its back to the common areas in my house, that I would clean up the cabling a bit. I had the power off for several hours while I did this. It took me a large number of tries to get it running after that interval. This was not the sticktion disk troubles that others have reported: I could hear the disk spinning up. At first, the screen showed a pattern that looked like a rectangular spider web with a couple of random mouse tracks running across at two places. A reboot got to the normal screen test-pattern and then a permanently blank screen. Several more reboots got further and further. Another got to UNIX, with crashes within the first few minutes. Finally, after power had been on for 30 or more minutes, I got a reboot that seemed to be stable. Then a bit later, I got the first honest-to-goodness kernel panic I've seen in years. Eventually, it got stable, and has been running without crash for about a week. Sounds to me as if something's temperature sensitive, and likes to be hot. Anybody have any ideas about how I could go about finding out what it really is? I would like to just chuck the part, whatever it is that's doing this. I'm pretty handy with tools, though I don't have more than a soldering kit, multimeter, and the usual pliers and things. -- Kevin O'Gorman ( kevin@kosman.UUCP, {pyramid,csun}!srhqla!kosman!kevin ) voice: 805-984-8042 Vital Computer Systems, 5115 Beachcomber, Oxnard, CA 93035 Non-Disclaimer: my boss is me, and he stands behind everything I say.