Laptop update...

[Kevin Oberman]

> Date: Mon, 21 Apr 2003 18:06:03 +0100
> From: Ben Laurie <ben at algroup.co.uk>
> 
> Kevin Oberman wrote:
> >>But most importantly, perhaps, when I do:
> >>
> >>portupgrade -Rra
> >>
> >>it almost never completes, because I get coredumps in cc (and
> >>occasionally weirder symptoms, like illegal instructions). I know this
> >>is usually attributed to RAM, but I've tried swapping that out - so,
> >>what else can I fiddle with that might affect this (and the other
> >>problems)? More info available on demand, of course.
> > 
> > 
> > This is disturbing as I have been seeing similar problems on my T30 for
> > a week. Attempting to buildworld bombs after 3 or 4 minutes in various
> > places. memtest86 found no memory problems. I have not run any CPU
> > diagnostics, but was assuming a hardware problem. (I still am).
> 
> Interesting. I haven't tried memtest86 (where does that come from?), but
>  PC-DOCTOR, which IBM supply, says all is well.

I need to install the latest PC-DOCTOR. I get the update a while ago,
but have not installed it. memtest86 is free and available as a bootable
ISO from http://www.memtest86.com.

> > Unlike my previous experience with this sort of thing, it seems to
> > happen about the same whether the system is hot or cold.
> 
> Mine always dies part way through trying to rebuild the X server. Whcih,
> I guess, is somewhat regular.
> 
> > Has any A or T series ThinkPad owner built a new CURRENT system over the
> > past week?
> 
> Note that mine is RELENG, not CURRENT. I'm happy to migrate if its
> thought useful.

RELENG or RELEASE? I really can't recommend RELEASE for a laptop because
so many fixes have been made since then to CardBus, interrupt routing,
and several other things. Current is a bit of a crap-shoot, but is
semi-frozen at this time and is generally pretty stable.

I don't recall what all problems I was having back at RELEASE, but my
laptop (600E at that time) did not run very well. It did run, though.
I have always been running the T30 at CURRENT since I updated from
STABLE.