what's up everybody!

i'm having an issue with compilation of almost any programs. when i try to compile a program (with make), it will start, but will eventually stop with a "Profiling timer expired" error. a strange file, gmon.out, also appears in the root directory, /, when the error appears. i can open the file with #gprof /usr/bin/gcc /gmon.out, and it gives the times for each thread, but i don't know what to look for (since hundreds of threads are called). this started yesterday when i removed and reinstalled glibc. X will start, but errors immediately pop up and it goes back to the framebuffer.

also, when i boot up the machine, fsck always complains that the filesystem was not cleanly unmounted, and that fsck.ext2 exited with code 27. code 27 doesn't seem to be a valid exit code on any documentation anywhere on the net. when i go into maintenance mode and run e2fsck, it says that the filesystem is clean. i think all these errors are somehow related, but can't think of where they point to. maybe glibc?

example error:

make[2]: Entering directory '/usr/src/e2fsprogs-1.38/lib/ss'
SUBST mk_cmds
MK_CMDS std.rqs.c
make[2]: *** [std_rqs.c] Profiling timer expired
make[2]: Leaving directory '/usr/src/e2fsprogs-1.38/lib/ss'
make[1]: *** [all-libs-recursive] Error 1
make[1]: Leaving directory '/usr/src/e2fsprogs-1.38'
make: *** [all] Error 2

kernel compilation also fails with the same error. is there a way to turn off the timer?

i'm using:

dell inspiron 5100
100 GB hard drive
768 MB ram
radeon 9000 mobility/64 MB
vector linux 5.1 soho
xorg 6.9
glibc 2.3.6
gcc 4.0.2

any help would be appreciated.