Signal 11's all over the place.

[Matthew Seaman]

On Tue, Aug 26, 2003 at 05:10:20AM +0000, readpunk wrote:
> Signal 11's from different programs and near complete instability usually
> means a fan/heatsink issue, correct?
> 
> FreeBSD 4.8-release
> Athlon 2400 XP+
> 1 gigabyte of RAM
> 
> Is anything else really necessary? Occasionally right after a reboot when
> I run top the thing crashes (the machine is remote) when it does get a
> little spat of stability for whatever reason it seems to allocate ram fine
> and run properly. Thanks to anyone who reads this.

It might be overheating -- but that generally results in the system
simply freezing up when the CPU thermal cutout engages.  Instinct
tells me that seeing a lot of Sig 11's like you are could very well be
due to duff memory -- it's not impossible for the memory sticks to
overheat but more likely they've just developed a bad spot.

If you have console access to the machine, try running a memtest86
floppy (http://www.memtest86.com/) for a few repetitions (or get the
NOC people at your hosting center to do it for you) That will take
most of a day probably.  Note that when memtest86 does find a problem
then it's almost always genuine, but some subtle problems can elude
it, so getting the all clear from it doesn't completely discount
problems with the memory.

Otherwise, try pulling out each half of the memory sticks in turn and
see if that can isolate the fault.  However, that won't help you if
the problem is within the CPU, unless you can lay your hands on a
known good spare to swap in and test with.

	Cheers,

	Matthew

-- 
Dr Matthew J Seaman MA, D.Phil.                       26 The Paddocks
                                                      Savill Way
PGP: http://www.infracaninophile.co.uk/pgpkey         Marlow
Tel: +44 1628 476614                                  Bucks., SL7 1TH UK
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