Re: Lenovo 050 desktop crashing
On Tue, Feb 24, 2015 at 11:23:08AM +0000, Sharon Kimble wrote:
> I have just bought a new computer,a Lenovo 050 desktop. Its working
> reasonably okay except for the occasional crashes. For instance, I've
> had it a fortnight now and its longest uptime has been just over 3
> days, even though its on all the time!
>
> It has crashed when I've been using it, and its crashed overnight
> whilst I've been asleep! There does not seem to be any pattern to
> it, or any noticeable trigger.
>
> When it crashes, the screen freezes, and both the usb keyboard and
> mouse freeze, and can not be used.
>
> In its most recent crash, it shows this in logwatch the following day
>
> --8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
> --------------------- Kernel Begin ------------------------
>
>
> WARNING: Segmentation Faults in these executables
> Watchdog : 2 Time(s)
You appear to be running a watchdog process, which is crashing. A
hardware watchdog will, generally speaking, work as follows: at boot, it
will do nothing, but when an application writes a specific command to
it, it will start a timer (30 seconds, 60 seconds, etc. Often
configurable). When the timer expires, the watchdog will cause the
computer to reset. However, when the application writes the command to
the watchdog again, the timer is reset back to the start. So, as long as
the watchdog process is alive, it is able to keep resetting the clock
and the machine works fine. But if the processes stops (because the
machine has hung, or the system is too busy), then the timer will
expire, the machine will reboot and you can get back to work.
In your case, though, it looks like the watchdog process is dying
because of a Segmentation Fault (see the full logs or a core file for
full details). At that point, even though the rest of the system is
running fine, no-one is resetting the watchdog clock.
>
> WARNING: Kernel Errors Present
> INFO: recovery required on readonly filesyste ...: 1 Time(s)
> mce: [Hardware Error]: Machine check ...: 4 Time(s)
You are seeing Machine Check Exceptions. These may or may not be a
problem. This is usually the CPU saying "I ran into an error". This
could be the cause of your Segmentation Fault, for example - the
watchdog executes an invalid command, the processor complains and the
watchdog receives a SegFault as a result. I suspect the difference
between this and a SIGILL (Illegal Instruction) is that, while the
instruction is technically valid, the data or the state of the processor
or something like that is resulting in an error. It IS possible that the
code is perfectly correct, but the processor is calculating the wrong
answer (because of a hardware error).
>
> ---------------------- Kernel End -------------------------
>
> --------------------- Connections (secure-log) Begin ------------------------
>
> New Users:
> glances (123)
>
> New Groups:
> glances (134)
>
>
> Changed password expiry for users:
> glances : 1 Time(s)
>
> **Unmatched Entries**
> lightdm: pam_ck_connector(lightdm:session): nox11 mode, ignoring PAM_TTY :0: 1 Time(s)
> systemd-logind: New seat seat0.: 1 Time(s)
> systemd-logind: Watching system buttons on /dev/input/event3 (Power Button): 1 Time(s)
> systemd-logind: Watching system buttons on /dev/input/event4 (Sleep Button): 1 Time(s)
> systemd-logind: Watching system buttons on /dev/input/event5 (Power Button): 1 Time(s)
> systemd-logind: Watching system buttons on /dev/input/event7 (Video Bus): 1 Time(s)
> usermod: change user 'glances' password: 1 Time(s)
You've included this information. Did you not create the user "glances"
yourself?
>
> ---------------------- Connections (secure-log) End -------------------------
> --8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---
>
> What should I -
> a) - install, to get a better idea of why its crashing?
> b) - do to stop/get round the crashing please?
>
> Thanks
> Sharon.
> --
> A taste of linux = http://www.sharons.org.uk
> my git repo = https://bitbucket.org/boudiccas/dots
> TGmeds = http://www.tgmeds.org.uk
> Debian testing, fluxbox 1.3.6, emacs 24.4.1.0
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