Re: Trapping Errant DMA Disk Ops
> > readers of this list will begin to think that this is my solution to
> > every problem... well lately it has been! Check the
> > powersupply. Apparently, after HD's, powersupplies are the most failure
> > prone part of system. And they don't generally fail catastrophically,
> > but slowly slide out of spec causing all kinds of hard-to-diagnose
> > errors. I've had three machines lose a power supply in the last 6
> > months or so and they all manifested different symptoms. One machine
> > would lock up hard without warning. the second one would just
> > shutdown. the third one would start throwing DMA errors like yours
> > followed by a hard lockup or, as the problem got worse, spontaneous
> > reboots. In each case, it was a new power supply that solved the
> > problem.
>
> I will go along with that, my workshop is full of discarded hard drives
> and power supplies, waiting to go to be recycled.
> The HD is definitely the part most likely to fail, followed by power
> supplies, then cdrom, though these can often be cured by cleaning the
> lens, lower down the list ram chips do go bad sometimes and a couple of
> weeks ago I had to replace a video card for someone, blackouts and
> lockups at random times....
And that CPU fan used to run at 5200 now lucky to get 4800 RPM.
I'll put in a new one, a bigger one
>
> > oh, and get some backups done quick :)
>
> do them now, don't wait till tomorrow :)
>
Luckily, the disk if it is going has no Linux stuff on it. Pretty sure the
cables are the problem with the disk but the power supply could also be. I
need a backup scheme that is not stuffing 4 gig of continuguous disk space
(which I only have on THAT disk) and then burning it all at once onto a DVD.
Takes too long as well. Need something that will burn smaller chunks,
progressively for a main backup and allow incrementals later on. I got the
DVD for this purpose and have yet to succeed with it.
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