First off. It was anomie that suggested Launchpad.

Have never used their questions section my self but did think it worth a try. If the ansewer you have gotten so far is a fair example I never will either.

The suggestion that you try the 64bit version to utilize more ram is in fact a good one. Problem is that the standard 32 bit kernel will use 3 gigs of ram just fine. This is the max that it will use. The pae kernel will use more than that.

My wife does use the 64 bit version and is using 4 gigs. Your pae 32bit kernel should do that too.

You could enable backports and get a newer kernel (something in the 3.x.y range). This might help. Would also be a damned slow download.

Sorry if I sound short but my connection which generally runs over 320MB isrunning in single didgets. Am a little short tempered.

One thing that interested me about the answer you got was that the guy seemed to know that you COULD run 64bit. I don't. One thing you should really do is discribe your hardware in some detail in any question.

To save typing this crap out all the time put it in your signature. See mine.

At a glance you can see that I can run 64bit systems. Also a number of other things that are needed for diagnosis. Please do that.

Another thing is that you really should, sometime, try a real memtest tool like the one in your menu. Yes it takes a long time. There is a reason for that. It is not a scan to see if the cards are broken or poorly connected. It tests them sector by sector in several different ways. This is why it was suggested alow it to run for only about an hour. If it hasn't found anything by then it probably will not. Running it once in a while and keeping score somewhere will give you data to compare to the next time.

Frankly you have convinced me this is an OS problem another source for this grumpy geezer to be cranky. As far as I am concerned 10.04 was the start of a rapid decline in the quality of Ubuntu. 10.04 is the reason I run Debian.

If you decide to reinstall I would get the install disk for Debian 6 (Squeeze). It was Debian testing when 10.04 was in development. It is what 10.04 is based on. It also is more stable and reliable.

Yes I do know that Debian is harder to set up than Ubuntu. Don't install Debian 5 which is not supported anymore because that was true then. You will have to supply your very own eye candy, available all over the web.

Now. I suppose you are installed on just one partition. Is this true?

You can reinstall if you are only on one partition and probably keep your data. Back up is a great idea though.

I would recommend installing on 2 partitions. It is actually better for the system in some ways and it is a much better setup if you want to reinstall. There backing up your data is still a good idea.

In either case you use the manual or as Ubuntu has started to ridiculously call it "something else". You point the installer at a partition and set the file system, mount point and whether to format it or not.

If you are on one partition you set the file system (probably ext4), the mount point as / (root) and do NOT format.

If you are on two partitions you set the file system the same, the mount point the same as the partition inquestion was before but we will assume here that it is / (root) and to format. You then switch to the /home partition and do the same thing but choose not to format.

I have done this a number of times and never lost any data. There is an install of Debian Sid on this drive. It started life late in Ubuntu 9.10-testing. Was upgraded to 10.04-testing. Had a / transplant to Debian Sid.

My secure business install is Debian Squeeze. I started live as my very first Linux install of Ubuntu 8.04. All my data is still with those 2 installs.

If you want to do something along the line of reinstalling Ubuntu on 2 partitions or better installing some other real OS on 2 partitions with all your data. Give me a PM and we do not have to bore all these good folks with that.

If you want to try a newer kernel in your current install I suggest leaving it run all night to get on with it. It will work, just very slow. May help. Don't know. Won't know unless you try it.

You will need to enable the backports repo in your /etc/apt/sources.list.
It will be there, I think, but commented out. Remove the ## in front of it and run;
I would look up how to utilize the the backport repo for you but when I started typing about the memtest86 I started to load the page that was on. It just came up. Really need to chew on the ISP tomorrow.

tommcd suggested one stick at a time (removing the rest) for an hour or 2 apiece. Really a good idea but I don't think it will change anything as far as this problem goes.

I am sure that the Ubuntu documentation is very good on the use of the backports repo.

I think in Debian it is something like, as root;
Could well be wrong, works for the Debian experimental repo though. I don't use backports. If I want something newer I upgrade or do a clean / install.

1 members found this post helpful.

Double post.

Widget:
Thanks for your comments about my problem with 10.04. You said:

"Have never used their questions section my self but did think it worth a try. If the ansewer you have gotten so far is a fair example I never will either.

The suggestion that you try the 64bit version to utilize more ram is in fact a good one. Problem is that the standard 32 bit kernel will use 3 gigs of ram just fine. This is the max that it will use. The pae kernel will use more than that."

And, I agree with you that Ubuntu 10.04 should have no problems with 3 Gigs of RAM. Regardless, I abode with the suggestion from the guys at Launchpad to install the pae version of the OS. But that didn't solve the problem. I haven't installed the 64 bit version because of what we have already said. The OS should manage 3 Gigs. Installing a different version or the 64 bit version of the OS is an easy way to dispatch the problem without solving the issue here. I can easily solve it by removing 1 Gig of RAM from my pc, but again, that is not a solution. As I have said elsewhere, Ubuntu 10.04 works fine with any combination of chips installed, as long as I don't go above 2 Gigs.

You said:

"Frankly you have convinced me this is an OS problem another source for this grumpy geezer to be cranky. As far as I am concerned 10.04 was the start of a rapid decline in the quality of Ubuntu. 10.04 is the reason I run Debian."

Even though, I'm just a regular user (very little technical expertise on Ubuntu), I must agree with you that here we have an OS problem. And I can't understand why the experts at Launchpad don't see it that way. I like this version because as a newbie, it is easy to install, to modify and to learn Linux from it, which was my main reason to use it.

I will be waiting a few more days to see if the guys at Launchpad arrive to a solution. If that doesn't happen, I will air my disappointment on both Ubuntu forums. Ubuntu 10.04 is a Long Term Support release. All problems should be addressed and solved. After that, I will purchase a new hard drive and do a fresh install of a higher version (either 10.10 or 11.10). Then, I would request your help on how to transfer all the stuff that I have in my home folder to the new version. And I will do it as you suggested, separate partition for my home folder.
Thanks.
wp

FWIW, I agree that such a glaring, serious, easy to describe and reproduce problem should be addressed in LTS. (I was hoping you'd get better support on Launchpad than you have.)

To be fair to Launchpad, anyone with an acount can answer the questions. Of coarse those folksshould know enough to file a bug but with apport that is not much of a chalenge.

It would be interesting to see what is, if anything, using a lot of ram. Could be a regression to some problems way back in the 10.04-testing cycle.

I would also like to know if this could be in anyway connected to the date 2-16-12. There should have been an update at that time, the last "step" release for 10.04 (10.04.4). Any image downloaded since that date would be 10.04.4.

There is one main reason for step releases and that is with an LTS if you do not do up to date step releases anyone installing the thing has about 7million packages needing upgrade. The release on 2-16 would be up to date for that time.

10.04.4 has one other reason for being. It is not recommended to try upgrading releases by jumping releases. That is to say don't upgrade 10.10 to 11.10 without going through 11.04. The LTS is diffent. Ubuntu wants you to be able to upgrade from one LTS to another.

Both the new and the old LTS may need some tweaking to get this to work. The 10.04.4 release should contain any such tweaks.

Just wondering if that could be connected to this problem. Should not be as mostly it just is toolchain packages to make the build of 12.04 possible from 10.04 (some dev packages).

At least I have a connection today again. Last night tried to download a netinstall image from Debian (168MB). Was estimated to take over 8 hours. Canceled that. Did it today. Took under 9 minutes.

Had better speed on a remote ranch with dial up than I had with Dsl yesterday.

I should add that it is possible to do a new install on 2 partitions using your current partition as /home. It is a kind of a chore and I am not sure that it is faster than backing everything up and just doing a clean install.

It all needs done from somewhere else and as you are installing anyway a Live CD, or live session from a stick, is the simplest solution. You need to get rid of all your files except those in /home. It is a good idea to remove or move your ~/.hidden files to another directory as you will not have all applications covered installed. You can put them back or use parts of them to edit the new ones.

If you are not familiar with these files you can see them in your /home/<user name> directory by hitting Ctrl+h. They contain the user configuration for all packages. If you have another user on your box they would not have the same background, theme, email profile, music play lists and so forth. All there config files would be in their ~/.hidden files.

This comes in handy if you want to have several installs using the same /home partition. Just make sure that each install has a unique user name. Had one guy in 10.04-testing that had Fedora, Ubuntu 9.10, Mint, Ubuntu 10.04-testing and something else all using one /home. I have 3 (a record number for me) using one /home. Does save space. I do have to remember 3 names though.

Anomie, Widget:

Thanks for your comments. As I said, I will wait for a few more days, and if I don't get a satisfactory answer from Launchpad, or at least they ask me for more information for them to analyze, I will write something to vent out my disappointment. Then, I will purchase a new hard drive, put it in an external enclosure (exactly the way I have it now), do a clean install of either 10.10 or 11.10, and then will come to you guys to help me out on how to transfer the stuff I have in my home folder from 10.04. I'm aware that I will have to install the applications. Quick question. I have a full backup of my 10.04 hard drive. Is it possible to restore the home folder into the new install even though it may be a different version of the OS? Will keep you guys posted on what happens during the following days. Thanks.
wp

Just a few semi-random suggestions and thoughts-

Have you got the newest BIOS version from dell? I don't think it would help, but its worth a try.

Are you mixing ECC and non-ECC ('normal') RAM? I've seen all sorts of screwy performance issues with mixing RAM types. Never heard of USB problems in particular before though.

Considered installing the HDD into the system, and not using it as an external drive? USB 2.0 external drives tend to run at about 30MB/sec (as you can see from your hdparm results). Thats a fair bit slower than you would get from the same drive running internally from PATA/SATA.

Cascade:
Thanks for your thoughts. Dell tells you to put registered RAM in pairs for this machine (kinda old), so I have to install all of them with the same characteristics. I had to install my drive externally because I don't have space inside my pc for an additional hard drive. Regardless, I was satisfied with the speed I was getting from the USB ports, until this incident.

On another note, my suspicions on the cause of this problem is moving into the way the OS loads the USB drivers (uhci-hcd and ehci_hcd). It appears that the OS is not loading ehci_hcd, which is the fast usb driver. Something strange is happening as you can see on the attached picture. I seems that the OS goes into a loop when loading the driver. Has anybody here seen something like this? If so, any ideas to solve it?
wp

Attached Thumbnails

 

Haven't seen it, but that sounds like a promising clue. Anything of note in the system logs? (Check /var/log/messages and /var/log/kern.log.)

Anomie:

What should I be looking for, specifically? Thanks.

You mentioned that a USB driver was not being loaded. Any clues about that (or anything ominous looking that you feel may be relevant - since last boot) may be helpful.

Anomie:

Here is a sample of the /var/log/messages and /var/log/kern.log within my limited understanding of it. Maybe you can figure out what it says. Here it is.

Problem messages from messages log.

Mar 12 13:16:07 WP-WrkStation kernel: [ 0.735247] pci 0000:00:1d.7: BAR 0: can't allocate resource
Mar 12 13:16:07 WP-WrkStation kernel: [ 0.735398] Expanded resource reserved due to conflict with PCI Bus 0000:00

Mar 12 13:16:07 WP-WrkStation kernel: [ 0.814255] pci 0000:00:1d.7: EHCI: unrecognized capability e0
Mar 12 13:16:07 WP-WrkStation kernel: [ 0.814260] pci 0000:00:1d.7: EHCI: unrecognized capability e0
Mar 12 13:16:07 WP-WrkStation kernel: [ 0.814265] pci 0000:00:1d.7: EHCI: unrecognized capability e0
Mar 12 13:16:07 WP-WrkStation kernel: [ 0.814269] pci 0000:00:1d.7: EHCI: unrecognized capability e0
.....
Mar 12 13:16:07 WP-WrkStation kernel: [ 0.814517] pci 0000:00:1d.7: EHCI: unrecognized capability e0
.....
Mar 12 13:16:07 WP-WrkStation kernel: [ 0.883387] ehci_hcd: USB 2.0 'Enhanced' Host Controller (EHCI) Driver
Mar 12 13:16:07 WP-WrkStation kernel: [ 0.883428] ehci_hcd 0000:00:1d.7: PCI INT D -> GSI 23 (level, low) -> IRQ 23
Mar 12 13:16:07 WP-WrkStation kernel: [ 0.883458] ehci_hcd 0000:00:1d.7: EHCI Host Controller
Mar 12 13:16:07 WP-WrkStation kernel: [ 0.883526] ehci_hcd 0000:00:1d.7: new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 1
Mar 12 13:16:07 WP-WrkStation kernel: [ 0.883571] ehci_hcd 0000:00:1d.7: debug port 15 IN USE
Mar 12 13:16:07 WP-WrkStation kernel: [ 0.907258] ehci_hcd 0000:00:1d.7: irq 23, io mem 0xbff00000
Mar 12 13:16:07 WP-WrkStation kernel: [ 0.907284] ehci_hcd 0000:00:1d.7: USB bus 1 deregistered
Mar 12 13:16:07 WP-WrkStation kernel: [ 0.907359] ehci_hcd 0000:00:1d.7: PCI INT D disabled

.....
Mar 12 13:16:07 WP-WrkStation kernel: [ 0.907403] ohci_hcd: USB 1.1 'Open' Host Controller (OHCI) Driver
Mar 12 13:16:07 WP-WrkStation kernel: [ 0.907434] uhci_hcd: USB Universal Host Controller Interface driver
Mar 12 13:16:07 WP-WrkStation kernel: [ 0.907479] uhci_hcd 0000:00:1d.0: PCI INT A -> GSI 16 (level, low) -> IRQ 16
Mar 12 13:16:07 WP-WrkStation kernel: [ 0.907495] uhci_hcd 0000:00:1d.0: UHCI Host Controller
Mar 12 13:16:07 WP-WrkStation kernel: [ 0.907553] uhci_hcd 0000:00:1d.0: new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 1
Mar 12 13:16:07 WP-WrkStation kernel: [ 0.907590] uhci_hcd 0000:00:1d.0: irq 16, io base 0x0000ff80
Mar 12 13:16:07 WP-WrkStation kernel: [ 0.907757] usb usb1: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
Mar 12 13:16:07 WP-WrkStation kernel: [ 0.907815] hub 1-0:1.0: USB hub found
Mar 12 13:16:07 WP-WrkStation kernel: [ 0.907828] hub 1-0:1.0: 2 ports detected
Mar 12 13:16:07 WP-WrkStation kernel: [ 0.907919] uhci_hcd 0000:00:1d.1: PCI INT B -> GSI 19 (level, low) -> IRQ 19
Mar 12 13:16:07 WP-WrkStation kernel: [ 0.907934] uhci_hcd 0000:00:1d.1: UHCI Host Controller
Mar 12 13:16:07 WP-WrkStation kernel: [ 0.907991] uhci_hcd 0000:00:1d.1: new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 2
Mar 12 13:16:07 WP-WrkStation kernel: [ 0.908026] uhci_hcd 0000:00:1d.1: irq 19, io base 0x0000ff60
Mar 12 13:16:07 WP-WrkStation kernel: [ 0.908191] usb usb2: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
Mar 12 13:16:07 WP-WrkStation kernel: [ 0.908242] hub 2-0:1.0: USB hub found
Mar 12 13:16:07 WP-WrkStation kernel: [ 0.908253] hub 2-0:1.0: 2 ports detected
Mar 12 13:16:07 WP-WrkStation kernel: [ 0.908329] uhci_hcd 0000:00:1d.2: PCI INT C -> GSI 18 (level, low) -> IRQ 18
Mar 12 13:16:07 WP-WrkStation kernel: [ 0.908346] uhci_hcd 0000:00:1d.2: UHCI Host Controller
Mar 12 13:16:07 WP-WrkStation kernel: [ 0.908403] uhci_hcd 0000:00:1d.2: new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 3
Mar 12 13:16:07 WP-WrkStation kernel: [ 0.908429] uhci_hcd 0000:00:1d.2: irq 18, io base 0x0000ff40
Mar 12 13:16:07 WP-WrkStation kernel: [ 0.908587] usb usb3: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
Mar 12 13:16:07 WP-WrkStation kernel: [ 0.908636] hub 3-0:1.0: USB hub found
Mar 12 13:16:07 WP-WrkStation kernel: [ 0.908648] hub 3-0:1.0: 2 ports detected
Mar 12 13:16:07 WP-WrkStation kernel: [ 0.908721] uhci_hcd 0000:00:1d.3: PCI INT A -> GSI 16 (level, low) -> IRQ 16
Mar 12 13:16:07 WP-WrkStation kernel: [ 0.908736] uhci_hcd 0000:00:1d.3: UHCI Host Controller
Mar 12 13:16:07 WP-WrkStation kernel: [ 0.908799] uhci_hcd 0000:00:1d.3: new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 4
Mar 12 13:16:07 WP-WrkStation kernel: [ 0.908825] uhci_hcd 0000:00:1d.3: irq 16, io base 0x0000ff20
Mar 12 13:16:07 WP-WrkStation kernel: [ 0.908983] usb usb4: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
Mar 12 13:16:07 WP-WrkStation kernel: [ 0.909033] hub 4-0:1.0: USB hub found
Mar 12 13:16:07 WP-WrkStation kernel: [ 0.909045] hub 4-0:1.0: 2 ports detected
......
Mar 12 13:16:07 WP-WrkStation kernel: [ 1.968031] usb 4-1: new full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 2
Mar 12 13:16:07 WP-WrkStation kernel: [ 2.137898] usb 4-1: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
Mar 12 13:16:07 WP-WrkStation kernel: [ 2.145795] hub 4-1:1.0: USB hub found
Mar 12 13:16:07 WP-WrkStation kernel: [ 2.146757] hub 4-1:1.0: 3 ports detected
Mar 12 13:16:07 WP-WrkStation kernel: [ 2.425732] usb 4-1.1: new full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 3


On the kern.log I get the following:

.........
Mar 12 13:16:07 WP-WrkStation kernel: [ 0.907258] ehci_hcd 0000:00:1d.7: irq 23, io mem 0xbff00000
Mar 12 13:16:07 WP-WrkStation kernel: [ 0.907273] ehci_hcd 0000:00:1d.7: startup error -19
Mar 12 13:16:07 WP-WrkStation kernel: [ 0.907284] ehci_hcd 0000:00:1d.7: USB bus 1 deregistered
Mar 12 13:16:07 WP-WrkStation kernel: [ 0.907359] ehci_hcd 0000:00:1d.7: PCI INT D disabled
Mar 12 13:16:07 WP-WrkStation kernel: [ 0.907365] ehci_hcd 0000:00:1d.7: init 0000:00:1d.7 fail, -19

If you have any ideas to share, will be appreciated.
wp

I've seen poeple really stuff this up in the past, but I'll assume you've got it right.

I'd doubt that its the RAM anyway, uhci_hcd and ehci_hcd are the mostly likely source of the problem.

Actually, you do have space. Not in the offical HDD bay, but with a 5.25'' to 3.5'' converter like this-

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811993004

That would let you install the HDD into a 5.25'' bay.

Cascade:

Thanks for the tip. I didn't know such a thing existed. Now I need to find out if I have an additional sata connector inside to connect the drive. Thanks.