Re: Off-Topic: G5 Open Firmware instability
Hi Tony!
On 5/13/22 01:11, tonyj@suse.de wrote:
> Right now it's running 3.0 Linux kernel. It's overheating. It will
> boot into X11 and remain up pretty much indefinitely if the load
> average remains under 1.5. If I start Firefox I'll get a spike
> (log warnings from Windfarm that the temp is "overtemp" followed by
> it returning to normal). If I really load the machine (run a prime
> factoring load test) i'll get a "critical" warning from Windfarm
> followed by an immediate power off.
There have been quite a lot of PowerPC- and G5-related fixes in newer
kernels as compared to 3.0, so I would suggest using a more recent
version.
Do you know that we have current Debian unstable images for 32- and 64-bit
PowerPC available?
> https://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/ports/snapshots/2022-03-28/
> Overheating is common and I'm aware of the process to try to fix it
> but my concern is that the machine has also become totally unstable
> in Open Firmware (OF).
>
> Initially OF was stable but I noticed that the machine had stopped
> chiming at power on and in the course of trying the various fixes for
> this OF has become totally unstable.
> (...)
> I've tested the RAM (4 sticks of PC2-4200) in a PC with MemTestx86+
> and they are fine. I've also tried swapping in different RAM.
>
> I've tried all of the usual fixes, remove CMOS battery, power off
> for a day, clear NVRAM, boot holding down power key to go thru
> programmers tone into OF. This dinking is what made it worse :)
Sounds like bad capacitors [1] to me. Have you checked for any suspiciously
looking capacitors on the mainboard?
Adrian
PS: We're colleagues, I also work at SUSE ;).
> [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitor_plague
--
.''`. John Paul Adrian Glaubitz
: :' : Debian Developer
`. `' Physicist
`- GPG: 62FF 8A75 84E0 2956 9546 0006 7426 3B37 F5B5 F913
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