Frequent Page Faults

[Doug Hardie]

On 15 March 2014, at 20:35, Olivier Nicole <olivier2553 at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> Wild guess, but if you could have someone checking the hardware for
> you: dirty memory connector, dust clogged CPU fan... As you said, the
> system has been running for over 4 years, this could very much be
> hardware.
> 
> Olivier

Well, it took a long time to get to the bottom of this.  The CPU fan was fine, no dust.  The machine is cleaned every 6 months so I didn't expect that to be the cause.  Adding a new NIC changed the character of the crashes and the traces were completely different after that.  We replaced the memory and power supply.  Neither had any effect on the crashes or messages.  Updated the OS to 9.2 on brand new disks.  Likewise no change in the crashes.  Finally gave up and replaced the entire computer.  Problem solved.  It must be the motherboard or CPU.  We are taking the unit back to the manufacturer (its local) and they are going to see what is causing the problem.  Unfortunately our backup machine doesn't have as much horsepower so it tends to run a bit slower.  Its noticeable by our users.  The OS upgrade cause a few issues.  A couple of packages have new configuration parameters that are not documented anywhere I could find.  It took awhile of reading through a lot of code to figure out what to do to get them working again.  There is real value in keeping UPDATING and README files current, complete, and accurate.  Yes I know its a real pain to do that, but it really pays off for those who use them.