Diagnosing reboot under load

[Garrett Cooper]

Micah wrote:

> Garrett Cooper wrote:
>
>> On Nov 6, 2005, at 2:01 PM, Micah wrote:
>>
>>> Skylar Thompson wrote:
>>>
>>>> Micah wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> My desktop system just started doing this last night.  I was 
>>>>> upgrading Gnome using the handy shell script they provide.  It 
>>>>> looks like sometime around 11:30pm the computer reset.  This 
>>>>> morning I'm trying to reinstall all the software that got lost in 
>>>>> last night's reset and I get another reset in the middle of 
>>>>> compiling.  The last message in /var/log/messages before reboot is:
>>>>> Nov  6 10:41:08 trisha ntpd[489]: kernel time sync enabled 6001
>>>>> Nov  6 10:58:14 trisha ntpd[489]: kernel time sync enabled 2001
>>>>> Nov  6 13:02:57 trisha syslogd: kernel boot file is /boot/kernel/
>>>>> kernel
>>>>>
>>>>> I just ran memtest86+ and there's no memory errors.  I'm guessing 
>>>>> it's a hardware issue, but how do I diagnose it?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Could it be a bad power supply? Try swapping in another one and 
>>>> see what happens.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> I was thinking that too, unfortunately I don't have a spare and was
>>> hoping to diagnose before buying parts.  Voltages look fine when I 
>>> check the accessory lines (+5 and +12) with a multimeter under load.
>>>
>>> Thanks,
>>> Micah
>>
>>
>>
>>     It might not just be a bad power supply, but instead a lack of
>> power  due to the power supply rating. So my question is, what is the
>> rating  of the power supply and how many devices (hard drives, ATX
>> powered  video cards) do you have connected?
>> -Garrett
>
>
> It had been working fine since I bought it at the beginning of
> September.  It's a 350 watt PSU running an Asus A8V-E deluxe mobo with
> an Athlon 64 3000+.  I have one ata 100 hd, one DVD-RW, and one
> floppy.  For expansion cards I have a PCI-EX vid card (MSI X300se),
> and an Intel NIC.  Plus the keyboard and two mice and that pretty much
> accounts for all power drainers.
>
> Right now under load the multimeter reads 11.89 on +12, 5.12-5.08 on
> +5 (did a min/max reading over several minutes on that one) and 3.36
> on +3.
>
> Thanks,
> Micah

    Doesn't really sound like a lot, but depending on the amount of
memory, I wonder since the power rating is _somewhat low_ and depending
on which area of the world you live in, the amount of current output may
be higher or lower, based on voltage values output by your power
supply... Also, is your version of FreeBSD also running in 64 bit mode
or 32 bit mode?
-Garrett