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From: dburr@POBoxes.com (Donald Burr) Newsgroups: comp.hardware,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.chips,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc Subject: sporadic problems with FreeBSD 2.2.2-box Followup-To: poster Date: 6 Jul 1997 11:58:45 GMT Organization: Starfleet Command Lines: 64 Message-ID: <5po19l$dgq$1@DonaldBurr.dyn.ml.org> Reply-To: dburr@POBoxes.com (Donald Burr) NNTP-Posting-Host: ppp6212.la.inreach.net Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.carno.net.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!munnari.OZ.AU!news.mel.connect.com.au!news.mel.aone.net.au!news.mira.net.au!pumpkin.pangea.ca!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!news-peer.sprintlink.net!news-pull.sprintlink.net!news-in-east.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!Sprint!208.25.48.5!news.inreach.com!greatbird.starfleet.gov!not-for-mail Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.chips:156935 comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc:44017 I am having weird problems with my new FreeBSD 2.2.2 machine. First, a description of my system: Mainboard (JET J-446B mainboard, with built-in EIDE/floppy/IO, PCI/ISA, SiS 85c496 chipset) BIOS: Award Modular BIOS CPU: Intel i486DX2/66 oveclocked to DX2/80 (i.e. the bus is running at 40MHz) Memory: 16 MB SIMM, 60ns, 72-pin, EDO PCI video card: generic/clone, based on Cirrus Logic CL-GD54xx chip 8-bit ISA CD-ROM: Sony CDU-531 16-bit ISA: Generic NE2000 clone ethernet card Floppy: 1.44 MB (Teac) Hard Drive: Maxtor 7245 AT (245 MB IDE) The problem is this: The machine crashes at random. This usually happens when doing some intensive tasks, or even lots of less-intensive tasks at once. The crashes are usually non-fatal (i.e. they don't bring down the whole system) -- shells or other programs coredump and exit, gcc complains with weird error messages that mysteriously disappear when I re-run it, etc. But at least once, the machine has completely crashed -- no panic dump or anything, it just reboots. This does not happen very often. Sometimes I can have the machine running for hours, even days, before something happens. For example, my machine has been compiling large programs and sorting through graphics images for well over 10 hours now, very disk and processor intensive, and not a single weird symptom. However, yesterday, I booted up the machine, logged in, fired up PPP, and launched my IRC client. Immediate crash (this one was bad: it rebooted the machine). I've done some thinking and have narrowed the possible problem down to several specific areas. Can anyone comment on these please? * CPU and overclocking: This is probably the problem, no? This CPU belongs to a friend of mine, who ran it overclocked to 80 using Win95 and Linux, with no problems (but he has a different motherboard altogether). Maybe I should just bite the bullet and either live with 66MHz or get a DX4/133 or something. * Memory: I discovered while roooting around in the system that my memory was EDO. When looking at the motherboard manual, it does not mention anything about EDO. I heard some very scary stories about using EDO memory in a non-EDO motherboard, that it could cause hardware failure, fry your memory chips, etc. Can anyone supply more information about this for me? And could this really be causing my problem? * PCI and PCI BIOS: This is my first PCI system. And I know next to nothing about PCI. Nor do I know about any of the dozens of BIOS settings (the motherboard manual did not shed any light on this). Could a mis-configuration thereabouts be causing my problems? FYI, I did set bus timings, wait states, etc. to "default" (auto-configure) settings. So what is the likelihood that each of these that I listed are the problems I'm having? Any problems you can think of that I didn't list? Any help you can offer would be greatly appreciated. Please respond by e-mail if at all possible. Thank you! -- Donald Burr <dburr@POBoxes.com> - Ask me for my PGP key | PGP: Your WWW HomePage: http://DonaldBurr.base.org/ ICQ #1347455 | right to Address: P.O. Box 91212, Santa Barbara, CA 93190-1212 | 'Net privacy. Phone: (805) 564-1871 FAX: (800) 492-5954 | USE IT.