Overheating Maxtor 40bg HDD causes system to hang.
 

Hey all,

I have just moved _completely_ over to linux and have decided to use my computer to its full potential, I have connected it to the net and started to run by box non-stop.

My system is an AMD XP1800+ with 256mb RAM, the Maxtor 40gb HDD along with a 1.8gb I use for swap. I also have a CD-Rom and a DVD/CD-RW drive. It runs Debian with a 2.4.22 kernel.

This problem has happened to me on a number of occasions:
when I come in to my box in the morning it is running dead slow and the HDD is making a funny wizz noise every few seconds. Since I cant do anything I hard-reboot my machine. Every few times I see errors that say things like "HDD reset complete" or a terminal full of some sector error message with the numbers at the end of the line changing rapidly. ?!?!
When the BIOS tries to check for Hard Drives it dosnt pick up anything, this is fixed after I leave the box turned off for about 2 mins.
I came to the conclusion that the HDD (40bg one) was overheating (and yes it was a bit hard to keep my finger on the thing for about 4 seconds), and after the 2 minute cool down, it was fine.

The thing that bothers me is y should my HDD overheat when it is doing nothing at all over night?

Does anybody know how I can fix this problem? Is cron running something on the HDD non stop?
Here is the process listing of what I leave running of a night.

PID TTY STAT TIME COMMAND
1 ? S 0:04 init [2]
2 ? SW 0:00 [keventd]
0 ? SWN 0:00 [ksoftirqd_CPU0]
0 ? SW 0:02 [kswapd]
0 ? SW 0:00 [bdflush]
0 ? SW 0:00 [kupdated]
9 ? SW 0:00 [khubd]
94 ? SW 0:00 [kjournald]
121 ? SW 0:00 [eth0]
126 ? S 0:00 /sbin/portmap
233 ? S 0:00 /sbin/syslogd
236 ? S 0:00 /sbin/klogd
240 ? SW 0:00 [kapmd]
242 ? S 0:00 /usr/sbin/apmd -P /etc/apm/apmd_proxy --proxy-timeout 30
255 ? S 0:00 /usr/sbin/sshd
264 ? S 0:00 /usr/bin/X11/xfs -daemon
273 ? S 0:00 /usr/sbin/atd
276 ? S 0:00 /usr/sbin/cron
280 ? S 0:00 /usr/bin/gdm
284 ? S 0:00 \_ /usr/bin/gdm
289 ? S<L 0:31 \_ /usr/bin/X11/X :0 -deferglyphs 16 -nolisten tcp -auth /var/lib/gdm/:0.Xauth vt7
323 ? S 0:00 \_ /bin/sh /usr/bin/kde3
336 ? S 0:00 \_ /usr/bin/ssh-agent -- kde3
375 ? S 0:00 \_ kwrapper ksmserver
308 tty1 S 0:00 /sbin/getty 38400 tty1
309 tty2 S 0:00 /sbin/getty 38400 tty2
310 tty3 S 0:00 /sbin/getty 38400 tty3
311 tty4 S 0:00 /sbin/getty 38400 tty4
312 tty5 S 0:00 /sbin/getty 38400 tty5
313 tty6 S 0:00 /sbin/getty 38400 tty6
352 ? S 0:00 kdeinit: Running...
378 ? S 0:00 \_ kdeinit: kwin -session 11c0a80002000107058238500000022230000_1071466025_955583
385 ? S 0:00 \_ kdeinit: kio_file file /tmp/ksocket-david/klauncherB8Eznb.slave-socket /tmp/ksocket-david/kdesktopliwHmc.slave-
386 ? S 0:00 \_ xscreensaver
391 ? S 0:40 \_ /usr/lib/mozilla-firebird/MozillaFirebird-bin
403 ? S 0:00 | \_ /usr/lib/mozilla-firebird/MozillaFirebird-bin
404 ? S 0:00 | \_ /usr/lib/mozilla-firebird/MozillaFirebird-bin
405 ? S 0:00 | \_ /usr/lib/mozilla-firebird/MozillaFirebird-bin
409 ? S 0:00 | \_ /usr/lib/mozilla-firebird/MozillaFirebird-bin
414 ? S 0:00 | \_ /usr/lib/mozilla-firebird/MozillaFirebird-bin
419 ? S 0:00 \_ /bin/sh /usr/bin/amsn
420 ? S 0:04 | \_ /usr/bin/wish amsn
421 ? S 0:00 | \_ /usr/bin/wish amsn
422 ? S 0:00 | \_ /usr/bin/wish amsn
449 ? S 0:00 \_ aterm -fg green -bg black -tn rxvt
450 pts/0 S 0:00 \_ bash
452 pts/0 R 0:00 \_ ps axf
355 ? S 0:00 kdeinit: dcopserver --nosid
358 ? S 0:00 kdeinit: klauncher
360 ? S 0:00 kdeinit: kded
367 ? S 0:00 kdeinit: kxkb
374 ? S 0:00 kdeinit: knotify
377 ? S 0:00 kdeinit: ksmserver
380 ? S 0:00 kdeinit: khotkeys
382 ? S 0:01 kdeinit: kdesktop
384 ? S 0:01 kdeinit: kicker
407 ? S 0:00 /usr/lib/gconf2/gconfd-2 23

Could it be the way I have partitioned my HDD?

# <file system> <mount point> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>
/dev/hda5 / ext2 errors=remount-ro 0 1
/dev/hdb1 none swap sw 0 0
/dev/hda1 /boot ext2 defaults 0 2
/dev/hda6 /home ext3 defaults 0 2
/dev/hda7 /opt ext2 defaults 0 2
/dev/hda4 /usr ext2 defaults 0 2
/dev/hda2 /var ext2 defaults 0 2

Thankyou all, any help would be greatly appreciated. Do you need more information?

Dave

First things first rule out hardware, does the drive work in another computer, or under another os? it's possible (not probable) that an intense screensaver could run up the drive, drive usage and swap usage can all be monitered.. try "man top" or whatever your GUI system monitor is. rule out hardware issues first.

Congradulations eliminating the doze virus.

Thx, yes, the drive does work under a different OS. I have xscreensaver working, that could be doing something.
Just then my HDD was churning away for about 4 minutes, I couldnt do anything, just move the mouse every few seconds.
Is that something cron or atd would do?
Thanks
Dave

A line like "errors=remount-ro" is different to me. I never see this in Linux Documentations or on other linux sites. It could be the problem. It maybe that your hard drive could be going or your hard drive has tons of bad sectors. Another possibility, the Maxtor hard drive could be complaining about another device on the same IDE channel. Third the cable could be going bad because high frequencies are attenuating from all the kinks and bends.

Check your logs if you can and you probably want to backup your data just in case anything happens.