Tim wrote:
On Sun, 2007-08-26 at 12:03 +0200, PerAntonRønning wrote:
I have tried to lay a trap. On my backup machine's ssh link to the main
computer I started "top", showing which programs are using most
resources. After some time the machine froze (it was left idle, only
connected to the internet via Firefox), and the program at the top when
it froze was "updateb".
That's not conclusive, though. Firefox is as good a candidate as any
for being the downfall of your PC, probably even more so.
I did Gooogle for updateb and I found that this is a cron job, that
maybe has caused trouble for others as well (I found a discussion on the
Linux Thinkpad Mailing List).
Does anyone here have any experience with this?
The posting suggested to disable the updatep program, but I am not sure
whether there will be other side-effects of this. Anyone know?
Updatedb makes the database used by the locate command (see the the
mlocate.cron file in /etc/cron.daily). You can disable it, and lose
that functionality. Mine uses minimal resources, though I recall it
being a bit of a drag on a seriously underpowered PC that I used to
have. It does trawl through almost the entire drive, so if you have any
issues with your hard drive, it could be getting stuck thanks to that.
There's also a chance that there's a misconfiguration, and it's trying
to access things it should leave alone. I recall reading something
about there being a problem there, and you can prune off some paths
and/or file systems in the /etc/updatedb.conf file. I'm fairly sure
that it should be ignoring /proc/ and /sys/ but mine's not explicitly
configured to do so.
I also got a tip from a friend of mine, who runs MAC. He also had a
similar kind of instability, and after running a memory analysis program
he discovered faulty memory.
Anyone else having similar experiences?
I can't say that I have, but you can run memtest86+ to test your menu.
It's available on the install discs, just boot it, and run it for quite
some time. You want to go through at least a couple of iterations of
the tests. If you get an error message, you've got a problem. It could
be the RAM, or what's using it (all the bits between it and the CPU,
including the CPU). Ignore such errors at your peril. Memory usage is
something that you need zero errors with.
The reason why I left Firefox connected was that I suspected that it
might be a candidate.
But it did not show up high on the list. Funny thing is that there has
been no freeze now for quite some time now, so the memory trail may be a
better one to follow.
As to memtest86: I installed FC5 from 5 CD's ( i did no have a DVD
burner at the time, but I have one now, since CD seems to be history), I
have been looking around a bit, but I have not found out where memtest
is located. If I boot up from disk 1/5 I expect to be lead through the
installation process instead, and that is not what I want. I cannot
remember having seen anything pertaining memtesting when booting up
from 1/5. But I know that I have to boot from this program since the OS
cannot run, but I would very much like some hint as to where it is
located, and how to tell BIOS that this is the boot program. (BIOS is
set to boot from CD before HD). Sorry if this is naive question, but
this is absolutely not everyday stuff for me.
Apart from that, I learn a lot posting questions to this list, so thanks
for all good help.
Brgds
PAR
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