ianw1974 Posted January 20, 2006 Report Share Posted January 20, 2006 It worked for me. I had my PC in use for 3 years before I tried Mandriva on it, and then I noticed the problem! Strange huh :P Could have been that the defaults chosen when I bought the machine weren't perfect. Or maybe I set something. Choosing Load Optimised is real easy way to see if it is this causing the problem. And if not, well, a little more tricky. Memtest is good after this just to make sure. Look forward to seeing how you get on. Am away from this afternoon, and back Sunday, so will follow this post from Sunday to see how you're doing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
arctic Posted January 20, 2006 Report Share Posted January 20, 2006 Memtest usually only test the RAM you have intalled, nothing else. If you want to check the harddrive, you should maybe do a thorough harddisk-check with a test-cd from your hardware manfacturer. Most manufacturers have some Windows, Mac and Linux isos for testing their harddrives that can be downloaded at their site. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scarecrow Posted January 20, 2006 Report Share Posted January 20, 2006 Have you tried booting a non-SMP kernel? Also- do you have two physical CPU's, a dualcore one or a hyperthreaded PIV? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gowator Posted January 20, 2006 Report Share Posted January 20, 2006 Yes, I mean pulling all USB devices off (besides keyboard/mouse, if they are USB). <{POST_SNAPBACK}> This seems like what I would do too. Rip out anytihng non critical and see if it still runs then add back devices oine at a time.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
uralmasha Posted January 20, 2006 Author Report Share Posted January 20, 2006 The boot drive is from Western digital, they have only tools for Windows. I am not sure I should useit, though they do say "read only" (with a warning) and provide an ISO image for "dos". As a first approximation to a hardware test I installed Ubuntu in that same partition, and exploited it for some time. It did not show any errors, so I guess it's my actions that have ruined the system. I only have to think more when doing things. This time I am going to keep log of everything I install/modify (unfortunately, I cannot get all I need from RPMs and have to compile a thing or two). Next thing I try is try other kinds of kernels and then it will be a trip to the shop. Thank you guys, again. Ah, yes. I also have reset the motherboard settings! :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
uralmasha Posted January 20, 2006 Author Report Share Posted January 20, 2006 Gowator, scarecrow, I have to admit, I cannot quite imagine myself touching the motherboard, and pulling some weird cables from it. I think it's a great thing that it has a paper "sealing" on it, to keep me from exploring. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
uralmasha Posted January 23, 2006 Author Report Share Posted January 23, 2006 Progress report: 1. Hard disk is checked by "thorough" check, clean. 2. Memtest ran w/o errors 3. Non-SMP kernel loads and runs, both stock kernel and self-compiled by me. What are the implications? Does that mean hardware falure? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ianw1974 Posted January 23, 2006 Report Share Posted January 23, 2006 What processor are you running? Does your system have hyperthreading? Or does it have more than one processor? Do the errors only occur when running an SMP kernel? Is everything still connected as it was before? Or is something still disconnected that might have been causing the issues? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
uralmasha Posted January 23, 2006 Author Report Share Posted January 23, 2006 I have AMD x2 4400+ , dual core processor (hence SMP kernel), on a ABIT A8N Ultra motherboard (that's nvidia chip). I had not changed anything in the system before the problem appeared, nor have I touched the hardware after. I never reset or cut the power, always shutdown the thing. The only actions I have taken were updating some pachakges via --auto-select, but that is, again, had happened before on a regular basis. Another thing I was suspicious of was the custom kernel 2.6.15, based on Mandriva's config,(however it had been running for a few weeks already, and before that there was another custom kernel which also worked fine). So, I would say it does look like hardware falure (one core dead, or some wires between them), but Ubuntu seems to be OK with that, it just runs, and shows 2 icons at boot, one for each "CPU" it finds. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ianw1974 Posted January 23, 2006 Report Share Posted January 23, 2006 If ubuntu is working OK with the dual core, and showing the processors OK and is stable, I'd hesitate to think it's more likely something within the kernel under Mandriva that is causing the issues. Although it's possible there could be a hardware fault, but would require some software to test the ability of the processors somehow. I just find it odd that ubuntu is OK, which would lead me to believe the hardware is OK. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
uralmasha Posted January 24, 2006 Author Report Share Posted January 24, 2006 Progress report... Now I am positive the hardware is Ok. I installed Windows on the small partition, it sees both cores ok. Among other linuces (thank gos there are plenty to chhose from) I tried Fedore Core 5 Test2 (would freeze while formatting, but since I did not like the process, I did not repeat more than tree times :-) I just installed SUSE 10.1 beta on that spare partition, and it runs OK, too. (that's the only distribution that did not complain about usb device 00:0000:02:00, which turned out to be the usb keyboard! :-) Anyway, suppressing my wish to tell about all those distro's and their installations, I was wondering what next. Is there anything else I could do to save my Mandriva installation? Anyone to suggest something, or point me to another mailing list/forum? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ianw1974 Posted January 24, 2006 Report Share Posted January 24, 2006 When you installed Mandriva 2006, did it fail to start on the first bootup? Or was it after compiling a new kernel that the problems started? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
uralmasha Posted January 24, 2006 Author Report Share Posted January 24, 2006 It is broke from scratch. I mean, I just install everything by default (at least its doesn't take that long, thanks). The last smp- kernel I mentioned, I compiled it in this afterlife was on ubuntu in /dev/sda5, I used the same .config file when doing it). Now, after a fresh install, I log in into the new install, do quickly init 3, then install kernels 2.6.12-12mdk and 2.6.12-15mdk w/o smp, and those are the only kernels I can use in Mandy at the moment. I removed Nvidia from the list, so no modules are compiled when booting a new kernel. Now we (Mandriva and me) are obviously missing something. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ianw1974 Posted January 24, 2006 Report Share Posted January 24, 2006 Have you removed dkms as well? If you're not using any mandy modules then you won't require this if your compiling everything yourself. If you compile your own kernel under Mandy with SMP support, does it work, or does it fail like the Mandy SMP kernels? Just trying to troubleshoot, to see if we can get somewhere with it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
uralmasha Posted January 24, 2006 Author Report Share Posted January 24, 2006 (edited) dkms is installed. UPD: I removed dkms, just in case I actually cannot say "i compile everything myself" , I "just" need a certain database and kernel, the latter for my TV card support. The problem seems to related to grub or initrd or whatever is relevant to the boot menu (I used grub in all cases): I, after installing SUSE, added mandy entries to SUSE's boot menu, and so far 2.6.12-15mdksmp is working (though a quarter of an hour says nothing, but It passed e2fsck, which previously produced kernel panics). SUSE's boot loader is installed on /dev/sda7 , and in previous cases it was something else, like MBR or /dev/sda5 (how to check it? Suse just told me where it would put it). Edited January 24, 2006 by uralmasha Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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