[nycbug-talk] Help!!! (server problems...)

[Kit Halsted]

At 11:50 AM -0400 5/24/04, mlists at bizintegrators.com wrote:
>On Mon, May 24, 2004 at 10:21:41AM -0400, Kit Halsted wrote:
>>  Hey, NYCBUG folks:
>>
>>  I'm having some problems with one of my servers & I'm running out of
>>  ideas on how to fix it. It's an Athlon 1.8GHz box running OpenBSD 3.3
>>  & it crashes every few days. Lately, it doesn't want to come back up.
>>  Nothing in the logs & it doesn't seem to be crashing under load, just
>>  losing power once in a while for no apparent reason. It was happening
>>  around 6:30-7:00 AM at first, but it died some time after 6:00 PM &
>>  before 1:30 AM yesterday. Nothing in the logs seems to point to
>>  hardware, losing power seems to point to the power supply, but it's
>>  still happening with a brand new 480W Antec PS...
>
>Check your BIOS settings, make sure your printer port is being seen
>fine by OpenBSD, and that you don't get any "stray interupt 7"
>messages, look while you boot or scan your messages for those.

Heh. thanks, I guess I forgot to mention that this box was fine for 
the 1st 15 months or so.

>It could be your disk controler, which one do you have?

Adaptec 2400A

>Which driver
>does it use?

iop0: configuring...
ioprbs0 at iop0 tid 521: <ADAPTEC, RAID-5, 370L> direct access, fixed
scsibus0 at ioprbs0: 1 targets

>Is this a "brand" name box?

Built it myself.

>Also it could be your disk(s), if they are SCSI check then in SCSI prom.
>Are they raided (hardware)?

Yes, IDE RAID 5, 3 disks in use + 1 hot spare.

>Does it write to the console when it freezes? Or nothing, just a hard
>freeze?

Power goes off.

>  >
>>  Basically, all I can think to do is replace the motherboard at this
>>  point. I'm wondering:
>>
>>  1. if anyone can think of anything else that might be responsible for
>>  these problems &
>
>It can overheat without load. Make sure your fan is good enough. You
>can monitor the temperature in BIOS for some time, if possible (cause
>server is down), and see if it gets into the "red" numbers.

I threw a new processor fan in it today. I also noticed that the slot 
fan I had in there is not spinning; I wonder if that's it. That GigE 
(nge) card gets wicked hot! Anybody know of a cooler-running GigE 
card, or maybe something with a fan on the heatsink?

>  >
>>  2. if anybody can suggest a good place in the city to pick up a new
>>  Socket-A mobo.
>
>Which motherboard do you have?

I replaced the MSI KT3 Ultra 2 with an MSI KT4AVL from J&R. I'm not 
really sure it'll help; I expected to find some cooked caps on the 
old mobo*, but they're all flat & non-leaky.

Thanks,
-Kit

* http://www.geek.com/news/geeknews/2003Feb/bch20030207018535.htm
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