Problem: my desktop system hangs. Question: what to do next

[Lennart Sorensen]

On Wed, Jul 25, 2012 at 03:54:14PM -0400, D. Hugh Redelmeier wrote:
> Serial console is useful but:
> 
> - it slows down things because the kernel blocks (at least some
>   things) while the message is being transmitted.
> 
> - it only works on conventional serial ports (a dying capability) and
>   expansion boards or USB to serial dongles don't count.  A P4 system
>   is old enough to have a traditional serial port.
> 
> - it probably isn't any better than an old-fashioned text console if
>   the problem is a freeze.  In a freeze, any messages are likely
>   preserved.  A serial console is better if subsequent events (eg. a
>   spontaneous reboot) would wipe the display.
> 
> - a serial console is a bit arcane to set up and requires another
>   device (eg. an ASR-33 :-)) to be at the other end of the serial
>   cable.

All true.  Never mind that the devices I work on at work all have serial
consoles (and in fact no other console at all).  Plain old serial isn't
a bad thing to have.

> Gosh, you do use serious hardware for Myth.  Mine's the reverse: my
> desktop is a Q6600 and I have a Myth backend on an Athlon 1700.

Well my box is both backend and frontend, and runs two SD tuners and an
HD tuner, as well as handling file serving for the network, some web
serving, runs a bittorrent client once in a while (sometimes a show
fails to record after all), etc.

> All other things being equal, I would like a Myth box that takes less
> energy: it is on all the time.  Besides, fan noise intrudes on the TV
> experience.

It is really quiet.  I don't have a stock intel fan in it however.  4 1TB
WD blacks and 2 120GB vertex 3s don't seem to make any noticeable noise.

> Having said that, the Athlon box's power supply went south, I replaced
> it (as I mentioned in this list), and now have a much noisier system.
> 
> Hey: the Athlon 2800 could be handed off to Mel :-)
> (I'm recollecting that you don't hoard useless PCs the way I do.)

I seem to hoard useless non-PCs instead.  I do still have a 486 just
because I really appreciate the effort it has made over the years.
It still works great.

> Since you surely have multiple DIMMs, you can at least permute them.
> Or even run for a while with a half-complement.

If the crashes were predictable, perhaps.  Dropping ram reduces caching
a lot though, and it really does seem to like using the cache.  It used
to have 6GB ram, but one of the 2GB sticks died.  Machine wouldn't even
power on if it was in the box.

I will do the testing once I put it in the desktop case instead.

The P5K board also has an unfortunate network chip that while 64bit
capable, requires that all buffers be in the same 32bit segment of ram,
which is really really stupid, since all the buffers share a single
32bit register for the upper part of the address.  The SATA controller
in intels chipset isn't 64bit capable if you run in IDE mode, and isn't
allowed to run in AHCI mode unless you have the 'R' version of the chipset
(which supports "raid"), although by using the bios for the 'R' version
I am running in AHCI mode which makes the disk not have an issue with 4+
GB of ram.  I am not surprised the P5K line was short lived.  It has
issues.

-- 
Len Sorensen
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