[vox-tech] Re: crashes -- kernel problems?

[Charles McLaughlin]

<snip>

> - Have you figured out a way to reproduce the lock up?
>   (as in given 15 minutes you make the machine lock for sure)

Using Mozilla to view websites with lots of data seems to cause the
crash.

> - Have you ever had the machine lock while you are out on the text
> console?

Once I opened several Mozilla windows and stared loading some sites,
then switched to a virtual console and still experienced the crash. 
Even the console totally froze up.  I haven't been able to cause the
crash *only* using a console yet.  I'm hoping to download some stuff via
ftp at the console to test that, but I haven't had time yet.

> - Are you *actively* using the machine when it locks?
>   (or does it happen when you do something and step away for 5 minutes
>    then come back to find it frozen).

Yep, I'm actively using the machine.

<snip>  (thanks for the tip about remapping the sysreq key)

> Once sysrq is working: S, U, B with a little delay between
> characters=20
> is what you will want to use to reboot after a crash.  If you hit
> the 'b' and it doesn't reboot, it hints more hardware (or very bad
> kernel bug).

I was able to use syreq to sync and reboot, because S and B (the left
half of the keyboard) aren't part of the embedded numberpad.  I just
wasn't able to press U to unmount.

> > one more question -- what distro are you using?
>
>   He said Debian/unstable a while back (his quote was even at the
> bottom <snip>

Yep... Debian unstable.  I downloaded the 2.4.20 source from
kernel.org.   It's not pre-anything.

<snip>

> > Also, my laptop doesn't powerdown when I shut it down.  Instead,
when I
> > attept to shutdown it just sits at a terminal screen and says 'power
> > down'.  I recently updated the bios, but that didn't change
anything.
> >=20
> > I wonder if this could be related to the crashes....?
>
> On Sun, May 04, 2003 at 03:45:18PM -0700, Peter Jay Salzman wrote:
> > this is prolly unrelated.  there's a kernel config option that talks
> > about using real-mode calls for a shut down.  enable that option and
> > you'll get a poweroff as well as a kernel shutdown.
>
>   The APIC issue _could_ be related to the crashes, the power down
is=20
> simply a mis-configuration of the kernel configuration as Pete says.
                                                                                                               
Sorry -- I forgot to respond regarding the power related stuff.  Pete, I
haven't overclocked my laptop.  ;-)

Last time I compiled the kernel, I enabled the real mode power off
option.  The machine still doesn't power off at shutdown.  Here the
power related options I have enabled:
                                                                                                               
<*>   Advanced Power Management BIOS support
[ ]     Ignore USER SUSPEND
[*]     Enable PM at boot time
[ ]     Make CPU Idle calls when idle
[ ]     Enable console blanking using APM
[ ]     RTC stores time in GMT
[ ]     Allow interrupts during APM BIOS calls
[*]     Use real mode APM BIOS call to power off

Oh... one last thing to clarify.  The 3c905 NIC is built into the laptop
and I'm using a Linksys WPC11 wireless PCMCIA card.  I'll pull the
wireless card out for a while to see if that fixes it.
                                                                                                               
Thanks for all the help!
Charles