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Re: Why does my system stop frequently?



On Mon, May 23, 2011 at 5:08 PM, Dennis Wicks <wix@mgssub.com> wrote:
I'm sorry! That was a very significant typo! I have a P4, not a P2. Also, not raid disk.

No worries, I'm just surprised no one else picked up on it sooner lol.
 

Also,
Mem:   1555440k Swap:  6168868k

so that's ~1.5GB in ram and 5GB for swap....
 

Disk /dev/hda: 160 GB, 160039272960 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19457 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

  Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System /dev/hda1   *           1       19200   154223968   83  Linux
/dev/hda2           19201       19286      682762   82  Linux swap
/dev/hda3           19287       19372      682762   82  Linux swap
/dev/hda4           19373       19457      674730   82  Linux swap

Disk /dev/hdb: 40 GB, 40978344960 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 4982 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

  Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System /dev/hdb1               1        4726    37961563   83  Linux
/dev/hdb2            4727        4810      666697   82  Linux swap
/dev/hdb3            4811        4894      666697   82  Linux swap
/dev/hdb4            4895        4982      698827   82  Linux swap

Disk /dev/hdc: 250 GB, 250056737280 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 30401 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

  Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System /dev/hdc1               1       30146   242147713   83  Linux
/dev/hdc2           30147       30230      666697   82  Linux swap
/dev/hdc3           30231       30314      666697   82  Linux swap
/dev/hdc4           30315       30401      690795   82  Linux swap


Raiding 3 swaps across 3 disks? Interesting ... never thought of that ...

Just to note ... a little more information then above is needed to see if it's a out of memory/swap issue

Mem:    510480k total,   432012k used,    78468k free,   143148k buffers
Swap:  1249916k total,    33508k used,  1216408k free,   173584k cached

usually the first 3 columns (total/used/free) will do, free is the most important, if Mem has 0 free, then everything is getting swapped that is not in ram already. if Swap is really low, then you are having paging issues, the lag could be related to the raided swap and/or a fault disk in the array

 


Yes, I can move the mouse. There is hesitation when I try to switch to either a terminal session or ctl-alt-fx console to run top.

Another symptom is that I can type while the system is frozen but nothing appears on the screen until the system frees up then it all displays at once.

I've seen that before, several years ago, sadly the solution there was my ex-wife taking an ax to the machine :( So I was never able to properly diagnose why, but it does tell us that the machine is buffering input and not all cycles are being devoted elsewhere, just a significant portion of them.
 

I will run the other tests and post the results.

If you swap out the SODIMM's and run Memtest86+, allow at least 12h per SODIMM, 24h to be on the safe side. If you have none to swap out, then just let the machine run 12-24h uninterrupted.
 

Thanks for the help!
Dennis

no worrries ...
 
 
P.S. - What are some Mfg & model of "enterprise" disk drives?

http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/products/enterprise/
http://www.wdc.com/en/products/internal/enterprise/
http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/x/options/storage/hddstorage/sas/browse.html

Just a few examples ... the 3rd link is for SAS (Serial Attached SCSI) Storage. Enterprise Storage Drives (typically spoken about as Black Drives) are typically designed to fail more loudly, last longer until fail and are accustomed to be run solo or in raid arrays ... where as the consumer-grade drives are typically Green Drives, they spin down more often to conserve power, they fail less loudly or even silently! They are also considerably cheaper ... so you get what you buy!
 

HTH/Chris

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