Hi,

I hav Athlon 2100xp with MSI KT6 DELTA mobo, My system hangs after 5 minutes when i log in to redhat Linux 8.0 kernel 2.4.18-14 i686 .......
wat to do ........

thnx in advance

bye0

Not enough info to go on. But from previous experience this can be over optimistic BIOS settings or bad hardware. Hardware problems could be voltage regulation, bad memory, failed fan. Might also be your graphics driver or BIOS AGP settings. And maybe your hardware is too new for older distros - might be worth trying a more recent distro - eg latest knoppix - if you want to just boot and test from CD.

If you need a memory tester see: http://www.memtest86.com/

I hav Athlon 2100xp with MSI KT6 DELTA mobo, redhat Linux 8.0 kernel 2.4.18-14 i686 ,
256 DDR kingston 32 sis agp, realtek 8139 ethernet adaptor ...... on dual boot windows XP is working very fine besides ... but Linux is not ......


wat to do !!!

> wat to do
This is what I would do - in rough order:
0) Search using google for combo of your disto (eg Redhat 9), your mainboard, with the
word crash and problem. Repeat for graphics card. Also search Linux Questions
and google groups.
1) Drop my BIOS settings to conservative levels - or rerun BIOS auto config - depending
on the mainboard. Windows XP may not be using features that Linux is. Or Linux
may be making more agressive use of the hardware. Record current settings first.
2) If you crashing while in X windows - find and install the X latest drivers for your
graphics card.
3) Try a more modern distro - knoppix is small and boots off a cd - so doesn't
need a re-install.
4) Test memory - Windows XP may not be using memory the same way that linux does.

It sounds like a heat problem. Buy a better heatsink or water cooling cpu block to cool the processor. Also move the IDE and floppy cable so that its not blocking air flow. Dust the computer with compress air.

michael@actrix, no offense, but keshif gave enough information. keshif said that it crashes after 5 minutes and computer specs. Usually in 5 minutes is about right after everything warm up and reaching to a steady temperature.

Why would XP run cooler than Linux? But yes, heat might be a problem. But it may not be a bad CPU or CPU cooling - memory and power-supply issues can be influenced by heat as well. The system I'm typing this on originally had a voltage reg problem on its mainboard that kicked in as the system warmed up (eventually fried the CPU). A friend of mine forgot to re-optimise his BIOS after adding memory - and also experienced crashes after short periods of up times.

But it would be nice to know whether keshif is crashing out of X, rebooting, or hanging? does it respond to the magic sys request keys eg alt-sysreq-b? Is it stable outside of X? Is there anything in the syslog? Is AGP running at 8x or 4x?

BTW, I did suggest checking all fans were working. Unless the CPU is faulty, any stock CPU fan is good enough for normal room temperatures. AMD's seem to function quite up to about 56C (at 100% CPU). I would think about more cooling if peak temperatures were above this. If the temperature is too high, you can always experiment by taking the side off the case and pointing a large desk fan at the system.

HI,
Well i hav tried google b4 posting question here !! but my hard luck that i would'nt found any answer ther on google.

i changed my bios setting and take it down to 1500 + to 2100+ but no use

AGP driver and card both are f9 and they works fine on p4 with out any problem ....
yea i m already downloading slackware 9.1

ohk u got a valid point ....
today i tried to install kernel 2.6.3 and my pc didnt hunged during the compilation and installation (45 minute) ....

i think my 256 DDR is creating problem coz when my pc stucks or hungs every thing stucks mouse keyboard screen but my HDD lite blinks after every 1 or 2 seconds until i restart ... ther is sum memory problem wat should i do .....

my heat sink is big enuf ..... and XP works f9 without any problem sum times i donot switch off my box for 2 days ...

when i try sum big processes i think it stucks or hungs ... like when i start vmware or start lisening songs ..... but today when i complied and installed kernel it didnt happend .... i donno why ....

its hanging ............ magic key ?? sysreq ?? dunno .... i didnt check out side of X ... i think stable ..... agp is 8x

every thing is seems to be working f9


wat to do now

take care

kEsHiF

have a look in /var/log/messages with (as root) less /var/log/messages.
scroll down until you can see the last bootup, then scrool up to see what last entries where made before this bootup. It might give you some clues.

The 5 min thing makes a heat problem probable. My computer has the proc directly under/behind the PSU, with 5 mm to spare. no doubt I got some mysterious shutdowns once in a while. (mobo protection kicked in at 70 degrees C). I had to drill a very big hole where the cpu cooler/fan was to make sure it could dump it's hot air.

try switchin to nongraphic mode to see if that alleviates your problem. As root do: init 3

when you experience a next hang: reset and try to catch the proc temperature in the bios. I am sure there are tools to do this from within linux, but I have not looked yet...

The fact that everything works fine under XP would make me suspicious of drivers on the Linux side. So your next step seems like a good one.

Haven't used Slackware - but I guess its as good as any. The reason I suggested Knoppix is that its a small download and it runs from CD - so you dont have to do an install to disk - you could use it to test whether a newer distro might be stable. I've used it in the past to work on systems without having to touch their disks.

This probably eliminates memory and CPU as a problem. Normally if you have bad memory, a kernel build will get random errors - multiple invocations of the compiler walks memory in nasty stressfull ways. You could build the kernel a few more times outside of X windows to see if the system remains stable. If it does I would suspect the X driver, or kernel AGP module.

Because the drive is still working, it sounds like X might be hung. If it's just X, the rest of the operating system will still be fine. You can use the magic sys request key to do a reboot. Linux has the magic sys request key for this kind of emergency. Some distros don't enable it - so test it out on a stable system first. Press altkey-sysreqestkey-<letter>, where s will sync the drives, u will unmount and b will boot. See

/usr/src/linux/Documentation/sysrq.txt

If the system responds to the magic sys req, then we know the problem is X related.
If it is, there might be info in /var/log/messages and in /var/log/XFree86.0.log or /home/yourusername/.xsession-errors. Precisely which files and where to find them can vary from distro to distro. Are you running Redhat 8 - your first post just said Linux 8?

If it is X, perhaps try reducing the AGP (AGPMode) speed and try disabling AGPFastWrite in the "Device" section of your /etc/X11/XF86Config (save a copy first) - or change the BIOS settings. It might be best to find out more about Linux and your graphics card - via google etc. Nvidia and ATI have binary drivers available for download. The mainboard/graphics-card combo may also require driver tweaking. The graphics card has driver modules under X which often includes a kernel direct rendering module, and the kernel also has agpgart, the mainboard agp module. You might be able to switch to using the framebuffer driver as a temporary work around. You can always post back here with mainboard and card's specifics.

Yeah, given XP is fine, it's unlikely to be your processor cooling.

When you use vmware and play songs you are starting up X windows apps. A kernel build doen't involve much X - except for scrolling output in a window. If there is a console (non-X) app for playing songs, maybe you should try that.

It still may not be X, maybe its the sound card driver, but I think X is a reasonable guess on the facts so far.

Hi Again !!

Sorry for being late .

i reinstalled Redhat 8 again !!!

After installing first time when i booted it works fine. i installed vmware and booted and then start using vmware..
after more then 45 mintes of using vmware when i was pasting sum text matrial on a window screen it got hunged again !!
so no sound pro ... i think still memory flow is there or i think X problem

!!

what to do now !! ??

Thnx for ur interest

kEsHiF

I think you should not use linux at all. If you are happy using windows: please continue.
Several people here have suggested solutions to find out what goes wrong, but you are not able to post any error-output, nor does it look like you followed any advice. Pretty normal behaviour for a stubborn windows user, i'd say, but please stick with the whinging windows crowd.
Or maybe I am just a bit disappointed with the skill-level of most linux newbies here.

Hi Jelle

First of all... i would like to say, i m using Redhat 8 on a pentium machine in my office and that is working like a gem ... not a singular problem at all, tommorow i m going to install modem and after that it would be my browsing + mail + web server aaight ........ the problem creating pc is my home pc .

well i don't think when system got hunged ther would be any kinda message on screen, just a sticky window can't move the keyboard also stucked ...... i can only tell every body that i was in that kinda (blah blah ) situation when my box got hunged !!

I m sorry to say, but u r lil bit rite that i didn't followed all of the advices .... well i was in a hurry to download slackware and install it !! or i was trying to install a new kernel !! but sum of the things i have tried already ....

wel i m using redhat from last more then 1 year or so .... but that was just for PHP development ... but now i want to increase my skill level of LinuxOS and i think these forms is for newbies and if u hav any kinda problem Please contact site Admin.... y r u trying to discourage me ....

well newbies means nill or just starter .... if sum 1 is not a newbie then off course his skill level must be G0o0oD or at least G0oo00D enuf that he is not a newbie

Hope u don't mind .... if u hav mind to mind Kidding

Bye
kEsHiF

Sala Tension aaali raha hai !! maaakray

Installing other distro's and kernels to solve a problem that was not caused by either your distro or kernel is like buying another car because there is a hole in the road you drive on. The hole is not the cars fault and may or may not have the same ill effect from it.
Limit the possible causes a soon as possible and eliminate each problem one by one.
Suggestions that have been made to you were: heat-problem, memory defects or X freezing.
Now go and test these possibilities.
Run a cpu intensive job without X running, for instance compile a kernel. If you don't know how to do that just ask (issue init 3 at a root prompt, make clean bzImage modules in your kernel dir).
Download the memtest utility and get that running to see if your memory has defects.
if it does crash: reboot immediately and read the cpu temp in the bios. Or do some research yourself how you can read the temperature via acpi.
If X locks up, you still may be able to log in remotely and shut down cleanly, or kill the X server.

The main point is: you have to do the hard work (thinking, learning installing) yourself. I dont want to discourage you from using linux, but I do want to discourage you from trying to admin your own box, but relying on others to solve your problems by telepathy.

Will you post the results soon?