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Re: server with debian 3.0 randomly shuts down when booting



Benedict Verheyen said:
> Hi,
>
> i'm running a server with debian woody testing / unstable.
> Base install with shorewall, nothing else. (2.4.18 bf24 kernel)
> IDE harddisk (ext3 partitions), SCSI cdrom, ISA SB AWE64
> When i recently came home i couldn't access the net. After some
> checking i found out that my server was down. I thought it was a
> power cut that had caused this to happen. When i tried to reboot
> the system it would suddenly shutdown at various points in the
> startup procedure. After several fruitless tries, it took iso binary 1

if the system is powering down on it's own during bootup and you
do not see the lights flicker or anything I would venture to guess
it is a heat problem. the CPU may be overheating. many motherboards
automatically cut power to prevent damage. In many cases it can be
fixed by applying heat sink grease between the CPU and the heatsink,
other ways include installing a better fan, or more fans, cleaning
the case of all dust, making sure there is good airflow etc.

you are not clear on how it 'shuts down', I am under the impression
that it just powers off which is why I think it could be a heat
problem. if it is a different form of shutdown be more descriptive
on exactly what happens.

as for the logs, worst case, take the drive out, put it in another
system, mount the drive and get the logs. for further troubleshooting
I reccmend setting the system up with a serial console so that logs
can be buffered to another system(many times just using a syslog
server isn't enough, solaris is good about being able to write logs
to a syslog server during a crash, linux is not)

nate





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