Nope, it would have nothing to do with hardware, since my hardware
configuration hasn't changed in the past month or so. And, as I mentioned
in a previous letter, the disks are dead, no activity...

Actually, I'm still in NetBSD. It hasn't frozen yet. It's been up about
9:30 with no freezes :)

Thanks to everyone for their help! Maybe this was just a temporary fluke
(I hope...)

On Sat, 22 Nov 1997, Armen Babikyan wrote:

> hmm, this could be because of some bad hardware, and i'm thinking hard
> drive right at the moment, because mac IIvx's have a SCSI (DMA?) problem
> with quantum drives+ncrscsi kernels. this problem makes the activity light
> on my hard drive go on for about 30-40 seconds, paralyzing everything
> about my computer, and a long error is then posted in syslog.  I have had
> other occurances with other drives (and older distributions) making my
> hard drive paralyzed (with the activity light on) along with my computer,
> but fine after a reboot.
> I don't know the reason for the problems i descibe as having in old dists,
> but the new one seems to be some scsi problem that's unresolved on IIvx's
> (which, incidently, are supposedly identical to performa 600's).
> see if you can see any hard drive activity stuff going on. maybe the disk
> is bad (or getting bad) :\
> good luck,
>   - a
> 
> 
> On Fri, 21 Nov 1997, Josh Hope wrote:
> 
> > I've experienced a problem last night that really perplexed me. My 
> > machine was running high on an uptime of about 6 days, when it FROZE. 
> > Yes, just like the Mac OS would freeze...
> > 
> > I wasn't doing anything abnormal at the time. Nothing to cause this type 
> > of thing. Before the 6 day uptime, I had 20 days...so the machine, as you 
> > can see, was quite stable.
> > 
> > So, I restarted back into NetBSD, and went to bed (I was really tired). 
> > When I woke up the next morning, it was frozen AGAIN.
> > 
> > I was running dt both times (but this should not make a difference. I 
> > have not changed dt at all in the past 3 or 4 months, and I run it 
> > constantly).
> > 
> > To explain what I mean by "FREEZE":
> > 
> > The mouse cursor wouldn't move. Could not type anything on the screen. 
> > Could not switch terminals with command-1, 2, etc.
> > 
> > Of course, it wasn't merely my computer being sluggish. There was no disk 
> > access, and modem lights were not active at all.
> > 
> > This morning, when I woke up and found the computer frozen again, it 
> > looked like it was frozen for quite a while. Probably it froze shortly 
> > after I went to bed. I rebooted NetBSD again this morning, and this time 
> > it froze after about 5 minutes...
> > 
> > Anyways, as to my configuration:
> > 
> > Performa 600
> > 12MB RAM
> > Generic SBC #26 kernel
> > 
> > I don't know if anything else would be necessary. I seriously have done 
> > NO changes whatsoever with my system, for the past 6 days, and it ran 
> > fine for 6 days straight. One day, it decides to "kapuut"!
> > 
> > BTW, some of you may know me from otaku@hick.com, I'm back again...
> > 
> > Thanks a lot with the help,
> > 
> > Josh Hope
> > 
> 
> 

Josh Hope                                          root@unixgeek.ml.org
UNIX System Administrator                        http://unixgeek.ml.org
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'Endless roll the waters past!                        - Lay of Leithian
To this my love hath come at last,                    - Lines 1220-1223
enchanted waters pitiless,                           By: J.R.R. Tolkien
a heartache and a loneliness.'