Is this hardware of software?

Adam Sulmicki (adam@cfar.umd.edu)
Fri, 16 Oct 1998 14:55:25 -0400


I have an bizzare problem. My machine is kind-of acting like Winblows box.

I seems to work fine, in fact it does passes 100 continuous kernel compiles
(it takes 24hrs+ for 2.1.125). However, after few days the condition detoriates.
It is unable to even compile a single kernel. Programs like netscape or emacs use
to crash randomly. (Bus error, sig 7, sig 11, etc..). I reboot the box, and everything
is back to normal again. I can do 100 continuous kernel compiles, etc... after few days
story repeats. (note, reboot is just 'shutdown -r', no powercycling or anything like that).

To make it even more bizzare, it seems that troubles starts after netscape (4.07)
crashes its java engine on some web page (a) is this cause or result?; b) user space app
should not affect kernel, dynamic libs)

I know about sig11 FAQ, but it does not look anything like the harware problems, I had
before, like bad fans, or inadquate thermal transsision between cpu and heat-sink.
In fact for me it looks like some memory corruption is being to occur at some point
after netscape crashes.. comments? thoughs? suggestions?

Info about the box:
kernel in question is 2.0.34 on debian 2.0 hamm distribution. (glibc)
Cyrix MII 300 3.0x75
http://www.cyrix.com/mii/mii-main.htm
GigaByte GA-5AX Rev 3.0 @ 66mhz
http://www.giga-byte.com/GA5ax.html
Seagate Medalist ST38641A 8.6gb hdd.
http://www.seagate.com/disc/medalist/med3.shtml
http://www.seagate.com/cgi-bin/view.cgi?/at/st38641a.txt
64MB PC100 SDRAM
ATX case and giantic fan/heatsink.
old vga card/ 16bit 3c503 ethernet card

Adam

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