2000-11-01 14:42:49

by Skip Collins

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Subject: screensaver locks up 2.4.0-test10-pre7 hard

Pentium 3, 256Mb RAM, kernel 2.4.0-test10-pre7 (as well as 2.4.0-test9).
I installed RH7, compiled the latest development kernels (using kgcc, as
required with RH7). After the "greynetic" screensaver (installed with
RH7) runs for a few minutes, my box freezes up hard. I can find no error
messages in any logs. This is always reproducible. Greynetic just paints
the screen with randomly sized, positioned and colored rectangles as
fast as it can. A stock RH7 2.2 kernel does not have this problem. In
case it matters, I am running xfree86 4.0.1 with a rage 128 video card.
I have not got acceleration set up yet and the r128 kernel module is not
loaded. My only attempt at debugging consisited of telneting into my box
while greynetic ran. I ran vmstat and the only thing that popped out at
me was that the system context switches number was continuously
increasing until the box locked up.

Please CC any responses directly to me.

Thanks,
sc


2000-11-01 22:17:54

by Keith Owens

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: screensaver locks up 2.4.0-test10-pre7 hard

On Wed, 01 Nov 2000 09:43:16 -0500,
Skip Collins <[email protected]> wrote:
>Pentium 3, 256Mb RAM, kernel 2.4.0-test10-pre7 (as well as 2.4.0-test9).
>I installed RH7, compiled the latest development kernels (using kgcc, as
>required with RH7). After the "greynetic" screensaver (installed with
>RH7) runs for a few minutes, my box freezes up hard.

Try the kernel debugging patch[1], select NMI oopser for uniprocessor
if your box is UP and reproduce the problem. The UP NMI oopser should
drop into kdb after 5 seconds and you can use the bt command to find
out where your system is hanging. You will have to compile for a
serial console[2] and run a null modem to a second machine to get into
kdb, kdb requires a text or serial console and is not usable under X.

Feel free to contact me off list if you have any problems with kdb.

[1] ftp://oss.sgi.com/projects/kdb/download/ix86. Patches for test9
and earlier are in the old directory.
[2] linux/Documentation/serial-console.txt