Random panics with 5.3-REL, SMP

[Hogan Whittall]

Hi all,

I've been running 5.3-REL for a couple of weeks now and have run into
various problems with panics.  Initially I had a wireless card that
wasn't supported natively, so I made use of the NDIS wrapper.  This
worked "ok" but was buggy and the card/driver would stop talking
on the WLAN randomly, fix was to bounce the interface and it worked
fine for a while longer.  At one point downing the interface caused
a panic, so I swapped out the wireless card with one supported
natively.  Works like a charm...at least wireless does.

I'm still getting random panics, however.  Doesn't appear to be
related to anything in particular and seems to usually happen
after being up for 1-2 days.  I've attempted to get a coredump but
the last panic wedged while dumping to disk.  I'm going to be out of
town for a week and won't have access to the box, but if anyone
has experienced something like this before and knows of a fix, please
let me know.  Here are the specs of the machine:

Dell PE6450 server, 4xP3-700 Xeon, 4gb ram, system disks reside on
a 2 disk RAID1 attached to a MegaRAID controller.  Wireless is a
D-Link DWL-G520-B, also has Intel Pro/100 ethernet.

Large storage is fiber-connected Clariion FC5700 via two QLA2200-C
64-bit PCI cards.

Also attached via AIC-7899 controller is a DDS3 tape backup.

Any hints or suggestions would be greatly appreciated, I can test
and give the results when I get back from Thanksgiving vacation.

--
H. Whittall
hogan at ninthgate.net