[WBEL-users] Panic halts in Kernel

[Robert Heller]

At Thu, 15 Jun 2006 16:48:00 -0700 david <david at daku.org> wrote:

> 
> Folks
> 
> Within the past few weeks, I've been experiencing what I think are panic 
> halts on my Whitebox Linux 4 machine. (Kernel 2.6.9-23.0.EL) with all 
> published YUM updates in place.
> 
> My system acts as the gateway between my internal network of machines, and 
> the cable modem.  It performs NAT functions, serves as my mail and web 
> server, and provides DNS functions for the inside network.
> 
> The symptom I see is that my windows desktops (the inside network) fail to 
> get access.  I go to my linux box, turn on the monitor (which is usually 
> powered off), and see nothing.  I suspect the failure occurred a while ago, 
> and by this time the monitor has timed out and gone blank.  The keyboard 
> doesn't do anything; even CTL-ALT-DEL fails.  My only option is the hard 
> reset or power cycling.
> 
> In the few situations where the failure occurred while I was watching, I've 
> seen comments fly by on the screen with words like "spin lock", and 
> "interupt ...".
> 
> In an attempt to keep my computers working, I modified the Kernel startup 
> line to include the option
>    panic=10
> which (according to specs) should reboot after a Kernel Panic with a 10 
> second delay.  It works sometimes, but not always.
> 
> I am at a loss to figure out what is wrong, and even what information is 
> usable to help diagnose the situation.  The computer is an AMD sempron 
> 3100+, with 256m memory, and 240 G of hard drive, as one logical volume, 
> split between a 160g and 80g IDE HD.  It runs command line functions only; 
> X is not installed.  Security Linux is off; I am the only one who uses the 
> computer.

My only thoughts:

1) Is the machine getting enough ventilation?  Are are all of the fans
working well?

2) IDE drives are not noted for being super reliable when in continuous
use.  Maybe one of the drives is dieing.

3) You could have bad memory or the many might not be totally up to the
spec needed for the processor.

Look closely at your logs, particularly /var/log/messages  Make sure
there are no messages about disk errors.  Get a copy of memtest86 and
test your memory.

> 
> If you have any ideas, please let me know what additional information you 
> might need to help.
> 
> BEWILDERED
> 
> David
> 
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>                                                                                                                  

-- 
Robert Heller             -- 978-544-6933
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