Chris,

I’ve tried a few things to try and understand the problem with my machine:

1)	Leaving it to run quietly for a while.  No crash... implies that the problem is not a gradual memory leak leading to a crash.

2)	Heavy internet usage.  No crash... implies that it’s not purely related to the ADSL modem I have on my USB port.

3)	Heavy disk usage, with ADSL modem disconnected.  "Runs" all night with load ave > 9 with no crash.  Implies that it’s not just disk activity, not surprising, giving the trace suggested the USB was involved.

4)	Heavy disk usage, with ADSL modem connected, but no internet activity  Crashed fairly promptly.

I’ve also managed to catch another trace, and this time I recorded the rlv values:

Non-emulated page fault with intr_depth>0
Data abort: 'Translation fault (page)' status=007 address=f73279f8 PC=f0219ea0
Stopped in pid 9316 (gzcat) at memmove+0x310: strb r3,[r0, -#0x0001]!

usb_transfer_complete +0xc
	rlv = 0xf001a4c4 (ohci_softintr +0xdc)
ohci_softintr +0xc
	rlv = 0xf00a4168 (softclock +0x1b8)
softclock +0xc
	rlv = 0xf01ae384 (dosoftints +0x74)
dosoftints +0xc
	rlv = 0xf0197e54 (exitirq +0x30)

I can’t imagine that the nature of the USB device attached can cause this behaviour, so I’m wondering who else is using USB devices on a CATS machine successfully?

However, I’m now slightly at a loss as to where to go next.  My system is practically unusable under 1.6 compared, and it’s been over three years since I last messed with the kernel.  I don’t seem to be able to get a core dump – by the time the crash occurs, the system is so hosed, it can’t even sync disks.  Any suggestions?

Cheers,

David.

PS – I’ve put my kernel config up at http://sandstone.dev.liv.ac.uk/CONFIG


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