Re: woody laptop hangs at various startup scripts

[Levi Waldron <levi.waldron@utoronto.ca>]

On June 28, 2003 03:43 am, you wrote:
> On Thu, 26 Jun 2003 20:32:25 -0400
>
> "Levi Waldron" <levi.waldron@utoronto.ca> wrote:
> > I have an elderly Compaq Presario 1020 P120 laptop running Woody with
>
>             ~~~~~~~
>
> Perhaps its time for an upgrade?  (without being rude)  I just ditched
> my 486 laptop because a P166 came available, and no way would I go back.

I'd love to, but I only need this laptop for another few months while I finish 
my PhD thesis, and I just want to eek that much more time out of this 
computer before I retire it and don't need a laptop anymore.  Besides, my 
funding has run out, so...

> Remove the PC cards, boot memtest for overnight, then run badblocks in
> read-only mode  (or read-write if you don't care about the files any
> more).  Sounds like you're having hardware problems more than anything.

Thanks - I hadn't heard of the boot memtest before.  I used

apt-get install memtest86

and let it run 24 hours.  No problems.  Badblocks test during the install 
process also showed no problems.  Re-configuring step by step, I figured out 
the problem.  Get this, it's weird!  

Loading the sb module seems to be the cause of the problem!  When sb is not in 
/etc/modules, the computer boots just fine.  When sb is in /etc/modules, it 
crashes during boot every time, at various init scripts.  

Of course, the sound card used to work.  But now it seems that I have a 
perfectly functional laptop as long as I don't try to load the sb module. 

Any idea why this would happen?  I guess it has something to do with a new bug 
appearing in the BIOS or soundcard hardware?

Whew!  Thanks, Levi