ssh/ethernet hanging...

[D. Hugh Redelmeier]

| To: tlug-lxSQFCZeNF4 at public.gmane.org

| Buggy hardware on the motherboard? Seems like it could be some kind of cache memory
| that fills up... I really have no clue at this point. All suggestions welcome.

The hardware is old.  Stand back and decide if debugging this is worth
your time.  I know that I am guilty of chasing some problems too long.

You seem to be doing everything right: changing one thing at a time
and retesting.

My recommendation would be to think of more things to change.

For example, try an old distro.  It may be that support for your old
hardware has broken in recent distros and nobody has noticed because
nobody uses it (or those that do are too lazy to report problems).

For example, try another thing to stress the network.  Like FTP
perhaps.  (I imagine nc could be useful but I don't really know it.)
If you can boil it down to a really simple stress test that narrows
the field.

For example, go into the BIOS and reset all settings to the factory
default (unless you know why they are set differently).

Bad power supplies sometimes produce mysterious symptoms.

Disconnect anything that isn't needed for the test.  Consider even
reducing the RAM complement to the minimum.

Consider passing in odd kernel parameters that turn off magic
features.  Eg. noacpi.  Sorry, I don't have a good list for you to
try.  Maybe someone else does.  Lennart?

Change the network topology?  Add, remove, or exchange switches?
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