Augustin wrote:
On Saturday 03 November 2007 21:35, Kamaraju S Kusumanchi wrote:memtest - to check for bad memory. badblocks - to check for bad blocks on the hard drive. I dont know how check faults in other hardware other than replacing it with a different one testing them. Pop in a Knoppix CD and see if it detects any of these or related problems before proceeding with Debian.I'll check all this and report here, though I remember checking memtest before. I'll do it again.
Also, remove non-critical hardware: second video cards, tv-tuner cards, NICs, sound cards, etc, and/or disable non-critical on-board features via the BIOS.
Swap memory sticks around, or pull one stick out at a time, if you have multiple sticks.
Reset the BIOS to its defaults, and/or check the pins on the motherboard; if you're overclocking or running at too low a voltage, etc, this could cause weird behavior. Check your mobo and CPU temp; make sure your fans are running.
Do you have another power supply laying around you can swap out temporarily? (Generally, power supply burps would be more catastrophic rather than causing temporary freezes, but it's something to consider.)
Any sources of EM radiation nearby? Flourescent lights? Microwave oven? Unshielded radio? Massive power grid on the other side of the wall behind your computer? (Again, these things would generally produce different symptoms than what you're experiencing, but they're something to consider.)
Gremlins. Definitely suspect gremlins.As Kamaraju suggests, a LiveCD such as Knoppix will go a long way toward indicating if the hardware is at fault or not. I suspect you do have a hardware problem, since you're having trouble with both Mandriva and the Debian installer. And as he suggests, the solution might just be to start replacing things, which nowadays can be expensive, since you can't replace a mobo without it being a match for your CPU and RAM, which means you might need to replace those too. Ouch. But you might can replace the video card (disabling on-board video if necessary), and a few other things.
There are a few options you can feed to the kernel, such as NOAPIC that may have relevance here. I'm not really familiar with those options, but you might want to look into that possibility.
-- Kent