[Techtalk] Diagnosing a hardware problem (long)

Thu Nov 14 19:28:33 EST 2002

Hello Vera Childs,
	I am quite new also and can address only a few points. I built a Linux
box after years of only Mac experience,wow, there a lot to learn in my
case. Much of it from list members thank you all.
	Point one I learned, a setting in the bios needs changing to run
several thing in Linux smoothly. The setting is "plug in and Play OS
*off*. I do not know what effect it will have on $indozs. The other is
to make sure the bios has support *on* for usb. I struggled with usb for
a while, after you configure the usb, and think it is not working or it
is just "jerking around the screen" re-boot, it may in fact work after
reboot. That is unusual in Linux but I found, in this usb situation, it
works. It was also dicussed in a google forum. I went through thePS2,
serial route and found the google group thing (restarting) worked.  I am
using a Kensington which has less support (or none) than Logitech.
	 People here are more friendly. So ask here first I always do, there is
a lot of knowledge in this space. Mandrake is my choice, I am waiting
for 9.1 or .2 before changing up from 8.2.

	Andrew


On Thu, 14 Nov 2002 15:45:29 -0600
"Vera Childs" <vera at dc-vc.net> wrote:

> Hi, I'm new to the list (joined late last week, I think). I've been
> using Linux as a "2nd OS" since about '97, always using Redhat.
> Recently, I decided to try out Mandrake 9.0 at home, and fell in love
> with it. My Windoze at home had gotten to where it wouldn't install a
> print driver, and the printing system would crash on boot. Linux has
> no problem with any of my home hardware. When I get time, I'll be
> making my Windoze partition significantly smaller. :)
> 
> Anyway, now I'd like to use Mandrake 9.0 at work as well. I've been
> dual boot with Win2k and Redhat 7.3, and I decided to just replace the
> Redhat. I brought in my CDs that I burned at home.
> 
> Problem #1: The install kernel won't boot. It freezes after some stuff
> about assuming 33MHz system bus speed for PIO modes, then lists ide0
> and ide1 stuff. Then it just hangs (keyboard hangs, etc.). So I got
> the alternative install kernel, which I think uses 2.2.19. Now I
> *know* a 2.4 kernel will run on this machine (Redhat 7.3), but maybe
> the latest one isn't happy. I dunno. The alternative disk boots.
> 
> Problem #2: The CDs had errors installing a bunch of rpms. I went back
> into Windows and tried to copy the stuff over to the harddrive. Didn't
> work. My CDROM got into this recursive state of spinning up and then
> back down, and I had to kill the process from the task manager. My
> officemate copied the CDs over to his harddrive, then put them up on
> the network, then I copied them to my harddrive. Ok, I'm doing a
> harddrive install now (what I did at home anyway).
> 
> Problem #3: Using the alternative disk, I went through the install.
> When it got to the end, as it said it was going to restart the machine
> now, it hung again, but this time I still had use of the keyboard. I
> changed consoles and found that it had errors writing cache when
> accessing hdb (the drive I was installing onto). That sounds bad. :)
> Another thing that happened on last night's install attempt, which
> didn't happen the first time, was that as it was writing the kernel
> rpm, it had a problem. It's copying from one partition to another on
> the same drive (the CD contents are on a FAT32 partition). I told it
> to go back and try again, and things went fine until the restart hang
> thing. Now when I reboot, I get the lilo screen and can choose Windoze
> to boot, but Linux brings up the Mandrake screen where it puts the
> boot text in the square area, except no text ever shows up. The system
> hangs (hard freeze again). The boot floppy that I created says the
> kernel isn't there, so it can't boot either. :/
> 
> Problem #4: Incidentally, I tried installing Redhat 8.0, and it
> freezes at the same point most of the time on install boot, but I did
> get it to get past that twice (without changing anything!), and it
> installed and booted fine. I just don't like it. I'd rather use
> Mandrake 9.0. *sigh* But during the Redhat 8.0 installation, as I was
> partitioning the drive (which Mandrake had somehow gotten the
> partition tables all funky, so Windoze thought it was a 24gig drive
> instead of 12gig), it didn't want to create the partition toward the
> end. I've now got about 40MB unallocated there because it was
> sometimes dying when creating a partition that went near there.
> 
> Ok, so I've downloaded the IBM Disk Fitness Test program and checked
> out my harddrive (a Western Digital - couldn't get their software to
> work, since the latest version didn't support my drive, and the older
> version requires Win9x/ME to write the floppy - grrr). Everything
> checked out fine. I've also run the memtest86 that comes on the
> Mandrake CD. After about an hour and 20 minutes of testing, it still
> hadn't found any errors. I'm going to run it again overnight.
> 
> So given the symptoms I'm having, does anyone have any clue where I
> should go from here? Or should I give up on trying to install Mandrake
> 9.0? The installation was absolutely painless at home, and I swear my
> work machine is just falling apart, bit by bit. I already lost a
> harddrive earlier this year, plus a mouse. And my monitor does some
> funky power things on occasion, and it also has a high pitched squeal
> sometimes (my officemate loves that - he thought his ears were
> ringing!).
> 
> Here's the basic specs:
> This is a Micron Millenia desktop
> 750MHz Intel processor
> 320MB RAMms
> 8GB Seagate harddrive (Windoze is on this one)
> 12GB Western Digital harddrive (partitioned by Redhat's installation
> program)
> NVidia Vanta video card
> 3COM Etherlink XL 10/100 PCI NIC
> Ensoniq CT5880 soundcard
> Logitech MouseMan Dual Optical (normally USB, but put into PS2 for the
> installation, since Mandrake didn't like the USB)
> USB Handspring Visor cradle
> CDROM drive... I don't know the brand offhand
> 
> Any ideas would be welcomed. :)
> 
> 
> -Vera
> 
> 
> 
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