[ale] Losing stability

[Bob Toxen]

On Mon, Oct 30, 2006 at 10:08:16AM -0500, Randal Jarrett wrote:
> Might be something simple as needing a new battery on the motherboard.
It's unlikely to be the CMOS battery.  A good way to check is, duh,
pop up the CMOS screens and see if the data looks correct.

Bob Toxen
bob at verysecurelinux.com               [Please use for email to me]
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   -- Bob Toxen 10/03/2002

> On Mon, 2006-10-30 at 09:59 -0500, Tim Meanor wrote:
> > Sounds like a flaky motherboard to me, though if you'd prefer to test  
> > out the memory first, you might want to try memtest86 ( http:// 
> > www.memtest86.com ).  It's a good memory testing program that runs  
> > from a bootable CD.
> > 
> > -Tim
> > 
> > On Oct 30, 2006, at 9:25 AM, Charles Shapiro wrote:
> > 
> > > My main box at home is having Serious Troubles.  On startup it  
> > > often will hang (no screen output) with the CD light lit steady  
> > > until I press & hold the "off" switch to retry. Other behaviors  
> > > include appearing to start up and then emitting random beeps  
> > > through the speaker with no screen output, or giving random core  
> > > dumps on various scripts in /etc/init.d.  I've also experienced   
> > > spontaneous reboots and random hangs/program failures in X  
> > > windows.  The "memory speed" number given in the initial startup  
> > > screen sometimes changes from boot-up to boot-up as well.  The  
> > > system is a home-brew about 4 years old and lightly used; leadtek  
> > > WinFast K-series MB, athlon chip, cheap simple video card, single  
> > > 512 MB DRAM stick. Processor temperatures appear to be within  
> > > acceptable ranges, at least according to the "syshealth" part of  
> > > the BIOS. I've enabled the full memory test in the POST, but so far  
> > > that hasn't picked up any problems.
> > >
> > > I'm thinking that the problem is either memory or motherboard. I've  
> > > removed, air-blasted, and re-seated the memory stick in a new slot  
> > > without change in behavior. At  this point I'm considering getting  
> > > some new memory and, if that doesn't change the behavior, replacing  
> > > the motherboard.
> > >
> > > Does this seem reasonable? The clock appears steady, so I'm  
> > > assuming the BIOS battery is OK, but perhaps that's a factor?
> > >
> > > -- CHS
> > >
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> > > Ale at ale.org
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> > 
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> -- 
> Randy Jarrett  K4RSJ
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