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New I have given up for now. (But I really didn't)
as posted at 8:30PM Friday night, 15 minutes before knight locked again:I went back to the kernel we had 465 days of uptime with.

I compiled it with Stack Smashing Protection, preempt and a few other goodies.

If this works I'll deal with it.


Okay, so why was *Z* and Jabber etc... down so long this time? You ask.

Okay, I was pissed, twice in one day, 3 times in two days, 5 times in a week. Something *HAD* to be done. Here is what I did:
  1. Pulled knight off the shelf it was on
  2. Took knight home
  3. Ran the [link|http://ltp.sourceforge.net/|linux test project]
  4. Beat the crap out of it, in doing so, leeching out statistics between locks and reboots
  5. Discovered some consistently good number followed by a very short period of crappy-statistics before locking hard with a kernel panic
  6. Put it into "Oh my, I hope I have enough disk" verbose mode. while running
  7. Discovered inconsistent data coming through the IDE controllers, but not because of them.
  8. The IDE Controllers are fine, the drives are fine as well
  9. Make it really busy, then check the controllers and drives... impedances changes once things warm up you know. Hard Lock City, as I tried to check.
  10. Restart, using a nice Volt Meter, measure the Power Supply outputs. Motherboard says 5V is low. I agree, it being at 3.46V.
  11. Put in a Tried and Battle Tested Power Supply, (IOW known good), much better 5V is 5.06V now... all others well within 1% actually all within .5%, 90mv of ripple on 5V and 3.3V and the negatives, 110mv Ripple on the 12V. Very clean by many standards.
  12. Go back and do the really busy stuff and check again... inconsistent data coming from IDE, IDE controllers and Disks all come out clean and shiny, nothing sounds bad, Hard Lock again.
  13. Start to ponder and think, when else have I seen similar stuffs... more importantly what was the problem and the fix.
  14. Let the machine continue its beating the crap out of itself, locking, rebooting, beating the crap out of itself, locking, rebooting... etc.
  15. Remember what the problem was when I saw this same thing before and check on the machine.
  16. Discover a worse problem than before, implement the fix.
  17. Run knight to death over night (haha a good pun)
  18. Still running in the morning.
  19. Bring it in, plug it in, Start it up.
  20. Here I am posting about it, Done! (I hope)
And you know, the bad part about this was? I saw the problem, went in the brain and it discarded it, err well pushed it off to the side.

OH, you want to know what I found:

Visibly decaying plastic sheathing on the 80-conductor IDE cables!

Yeap, you heard/read right. It was crumbling IDE Cables, very bad for DATA consistency. I noticed this light yellow stuff in the case bottom, when I cleaned knight out last week. Thought nothing of it.

GRR - keeper of the LRPDs, thank you for teaching me to keep it simple, again.

And, if you have still, more to teach me... please let there be another machine you would have me do this on.

And Yes, GRR I have ordered those additional UPS with nice big batteries in them, to keep you going longer during a power outage.

Parts replaced:
Premium Silicone Rubber Sheathed Round cables, Antec 450w-Quiet Power Supply. Memory and Display adapter from last time.
Lets pray(prey?) this is the end of it.

Here are the [link|http://www.gregfolkert.net/pics/technical/knight/|pics of the cables]. One cable had decay pretty bad... the black/brown lines in the first are actual "sightings" of the conductors. (Woo and Yay!)


Edit for additonal information twice, once for adding Pictures
--
[link|mailto:greg@gregfolkert.net|greg],
[link|http://www.iwethey.org/ed_curry|REMEMBER ED CURRY!] @ iwethey
[image|http://www.danasoft.com/vipersig.jpg||||]
Expand Edited by folkert April 24, 2005, 01:34:06 PM EDT
Expand Edited by folkert April 24, 2005, 02:15:23 PM EDT
Expand Edited by folkert April 25, 2005, 11:27:38 AM EDT
New Excellent, Mr. Holmes. Ya done good. :-)
New I love a good mystery as much as the next guy
however I also understand the frustration that sets in when you knew the answer all along and just couldn't quite put your finger on it.

And again, I am forced to bow down and humbly speak the words "I'm not worthy" for the time you've spend in feeding my LRPD addiction.

You're the best! Thanks.

If you push something hard enough, it will fall over. Fudd's First Law of Opposition

[link|mailto:bepatient@aol.com|BePatient]
New Dittos!
Alex

The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt. -- Bertrand Russell
New Wow, nice going
This is why I don't do hardware... :-D
Regards,

-scott anderson

"Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson..."
New Good going.
Sometimes the obvious is very hard to see.

Myself, I've had enough problems with 80-wire IDE cables lately that when I see inexplicable data problems I just throw them away and put in new ones. No visible decay, but it has worked.
[link|http://www.aaxnet.com|AAx]
New thanks x many....
Have fun,
Carl Forde
New VERY nice work... thank you for sharing
New Thanks Greg, and here I thought I had the problem
'cuz I upgraded to Opera 8.0. Then could no longer access Iwethey. Tried everything short of reinstalling previous version. Then the LIGHT dawned and tried accessing with "shuer" IE. Still no access, then I figure that it must be an external problem.

Thanks for all the great work you do keeping us running.
A good friend will come and bail you out of jail ... but, a true friend will be sitting next to you saying, "Damn...that was fun!"
New Re: Thanks Greg, and here I thought I had the problem
That was my thought too, when I tried a few times and couldn't access it. My ISP has been squirrelly lately, so I wondered.

Your efforts are appreciated, Greg!!!

Brenda

Edit: fixed grammar.



"The people of the world having once been deceived, suspect deceit in truth itself." -- Hitopadesa 600?-1100? AD, Sanskrit Fable From Panchatantr
Expand Edited by Nightowl April 30, 2005, 02:44:22 PM EDT
New Thanks, man!
In a few years, this will be just a humorous anecdote...
[link|http://www.runningworks.com|
]
Imric's Tips for Living
  • Paranoia Is a Survival Trait
  • Pessimists are never disappointed - but sometimes, if they are very lucky, they can be pleasantly surprised...
  • Even though everyone is out to get you, it doesn't matter unless you let them win.


Nothing is as simple as it seems in the beginning,
As hopeless as it seems in the middle,
Or as finished as it seems in the end.
 
 
New You mean that....
I'm unlikely to have as productive a weekend going forward as I did this time?

Thank you!

Ben
I have come to believe that idealism without discipline is a quick road to disaster, while discipline without idealism is pointless. -- Aaron Ward (my brother)
New Amazing stuff. Thanks heaps Greg, yet again!
Two out of three people wonder where the other one is.
New Thank you Greg, very much
All tribal myths are true, for a given value of "true" Terry Pratchett
[link|http://boxleys.blogspot.com/|http://boxleys.blogspot.com/]

Any opinions expressed by me are mine alone, posted from my home computer, on my own time as a free american and do not reflect the opinions of any person or company that I have had professional relations with in the past 48 years. meep
questions, help? [link|mailto:pappas@catholic.org|email pappas at catholic.org]
New What do people do who don't have a Greg?
Thanks man.
===

Purveyor of Doc Hope's [link|http://DocHope.com|fresh-baked dog biscuits and pet treats].
[link|http://DocHope.com|http://DocHope.com]
New I dunno
I'm quite happy to have one.
New They have excess Mt Dew, apparently
:-)


Peter
[link|http://www.ubuntulinux.org|Ubuntu Linux]
[link|http://www.kuro5hin.org|There is no K5 Cabal]
[link|http://guildenstern.dyndns.org|Home]
Use P2P for legitimate purposes!
New Diet Mountain Dew. Regular == Karo Syrup 'n citrus flavoring
--
[link|mailto:greg@gregfolkert.net|greg],
[link|http://www.iwethey.org/ed_curry|REMEMBER ED CURRY!] @ iwethey
[image|http://www.danasoft.com/vipersig.jpg||||]
New Thanks, man. For everything you do here.
--
Steve
New Common element?
Good work. You have me wondering if the common element between an old box that would occassionally freeze and a newer box that occassionally hangs might be a reused IDE cable. Fortunately, them things is cheap enough to replace them on mere suspicion.
New On the back of this (and good job, Mr F)
Subscribe to the mailing list. Important Things will, in future, be announced there.


Peter
[link|http://www.ubuntulinux.org|Ubuntu Linux]
[link|http://www.kuro5hin.org|There is no K5 Cabal]
[link|http://guildenstern.dyndns.org|Home]
Use P2P for legitimate purposes!
New I didnt understand a word you wrote
But,ummm, thanks!
New Nontechnical translation
He saw a bunch of weird errors. He tried various things. They continued to crop up, making no sense to him. Then he realized that a wire which carries data was falling apart. Replacing that wire fixed the problems.

Cheers,
Ben
I have come to believe that idealism without discipline is a quick road to disaster, while discipline without idealism is pointless. -- Aaron Ward (my brother)
New ahhhh
Now that I understand I'll sleep much better tonight.
New I was worried... I'd have to administer...
a 1% H2O2 solution to the machine. All to let you sleep?

BTW, how is the Nasal cavity doing these days?

If it is better... one can only guess that it was the burning like hell that helped it.

Glad to know there are still Veteran and Weathered Sailors hanging around here... at least people that *SOUND* like them at least.




And yes, you are right a 3% solution burns like hell. 1% does, too, except it is much less intense and after a while actually feels warm. I know this because I had a start to a sinus infection this weekend. Soon after my adminstration... it was a minor annoyance, that wasn't the numbing pain.

--
[link|mailto:greg@gregfolkert.net|greg],
[link|http://www.iwethey.org/ed_curry|REMEMBER ED CURRY!] @ iwethey
[image|http://www.danasoft.com/vipersig.jpg||||]
New Still the same over here
Spent the weekend being sick on the couch and cursing the SNOW! Surgery is Wednesday. Should be my normal perky self by the weekend.
Hope you're feeling better. It's a bitch, aint it?
New Don't worry; that only proves he knows what he's doing.
New Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Thanks for all you do. And remember the immortal words of Jerry Pournelle. "When I can't figure it out, it must be a bad cable."
-----------------------------------------
"In this world of sin and sorrow there is always something to be thankful for. As for me, I rejoice that I am not a Republican."
-- H. L. Mencken

Support our troops, Impeach Bush.
D. D. Richards
New Reminds me of a line from the Andromeda Strain
...about trying to find and elephant with a microscope (when a small sliver of paper fell into the coils of the electromechanical bell that was used on the ASR35 teletype on which they were waiting for a high priority message)....


Nicely done, Greg!
jb4
shrub\ufffdbish (Am., from shrub + rubbish, after the derisive name for America's 43 president; 2003) n. 1. a form of nonsensical political doubletalk wherein the speaker attempts to defend the indefensible by lying, obfuscation, or otherwise misstating the facts; GIBBERISH. 2. any of a collection of utterances from America's putative 43rd president. cf. BULLSHIT

New Rust never sleeps



"Whenever you find you are on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect"   --Mark Twain

"The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them."   --Albert Einstein

"This is still a dangerous world. It's a world of madmen and uncertainty and potential mental losses."   --George W. Bush
New Belated kudos
Heh, usually it's all the stuff We Know (which is wrong) which gets in the way of fixing..

As I guess has already been said - it's bloody rare to find someone who groks software AND ackshull Lectronics, not to mention -- enough Engrish to report in comprehensible form! Yeah.. stuff in bottom of box .. I wonder if .. damn! there's the phone. Where wuz I?

Have rarely encountered a 'computer tech' who would even think to measure ripple or look at a PS line with a scope. I figure that .. for want of such talents as yours, the whole bizness infrastructure is daily in much greater peril than any old CTO-EIEIO has yet imagined. (Even not counting the now universal Billyware random-crash factor and pervasive dumbth in other areas)

They should pay you LOTS.. but I bet the people 'above' your position don't know Ohm's law as well as they knew (but have long forgotten) the Peter Principle.


You Da Man
May your 454-A Live Forever :-0
..specially with them new filter caps.
New I don't use it often enough...
That 454A was the best thing I coulda bought. It has literally saved my arse, made things easier, covered other people's but... etc.

I don't turn it on and use it often enough. But I am glad I have it. That and my Bench VTVM. My simple freq generator I built ~10years ago. My RF-Reflectance Meter, My Antenna-in-can or Cantenna for loading. My tri-mode power supply, constant-current, constant-voltage or variable-voltage/variable-current. Among other things.

Nice to see you back.
--
[link|mailto:greg@gregfolkert.net|greg],
[link|http://www.iwethey.org/ed_curry|REMEMBER ED CURRY!] @ iwethey
[image|http://www.danasoft.com/vipersig.jpg||||]
     I have given up for now. (But I really didn't) - (folkert) - (31)
         Excellent, Mr. Holmes. Ya done good. :-) -NT - (Another Scott)
         I love a good mystery as much as the next guy - (bepatient) - (1)
             Dittos! -NT - (a6l6e6x)
         Wow, nice going - (admin)
         Good going. - (Andrew Grygus)
         thanks x many.... -NT - (cforde)
         VERY nice work... thank you for sharing -NT - (hnick)
         Thanks Greg, and here I thought I had the problem - (jbrabeck) - (1)
             Re: Thanks Greg, and here I thought I had the problem - (Nightowl)
         Thanks, man! - (imric)
         You mean that.... - (ben_tilly)
         Amazing stuff. Thanks heaps Greg, yet again! -NT - (Meerkat)
         Thank you Greg, very much -NT - (boxley)
         What do people do who don't have a Greg? - (drewk) - (3)
             I dunno - (broomberg)
             They have excess Mt Dew, apparently - (pwhysall) - (1)
                 Diet Mountain Dew. Regular == Karo Syrup 'n citrus flavoring -NT - (folkert)
         Thanks, man. For everything you do here. -NT - (Steve Lowe)
         Common element? - (dws)
         On the back of this (and good job, Mr F) - (pwhysall)
         I didnt understand a word you wrote - (bionerd) - (5)
             Nontechnical translation - (ben_tilly) - (3)
                 ahhhh - (bionerd) - (2)
                     I was worried... I'd have to administer... - (folkert) - (1)
                         Still the same over here - (bionerd)
             Don't worry; that only proves he knows what he's doing. -NT - (CRConrad)
         Thank you, thank you, thank you. - (Silverlock)
         Reminds me of a line from the Andromeda Strain - (jb4)
         Rust never sleeps -NT - (tuberculosis)
         Belated kudos - (Ashton) - (1)
             I don't use it often enough... - (folkert)

Just having a rest between bars...
134 ms