topic Re: weird problem in Operating System - Linux

weird problem

Paolo Supino — Thu, 20 Oct 2005 08:39:55 GMT

I have a Comapq 1850R (G1) system that runs Fedora Core 3 and acts as a radius/tacacs server. For a very long time this system was very stable and just worked. Last week it started freezing (the system freezes and the only thing to do is power cycle it). I thought that maybe the location of the system (inside a hot rack was to blame), so having an identical system in the (cool) lab I took the hard disk inserted into the system in the lab and booted the system. Even in the new system it keeps locking. In the various times I power cycled the system I noticed that when I press the "caps lock" or "num lock" keys or remove the keyboard the system freezes!!!
Anyone ever ancounter such a situation and knows why it happens and how to solve it?

1. Nothing appears in /var/log/messages.
2. I tought that there might be problems with the hard disk (but there seems to be none).
3. The disk is SCSI (9.1GB size).
4. I will run fsck -b, but I don't think it will solve the problem...

TIA
Paolo

Re: weird problem

Ivan Ferreira — Thu, 20 Oct 2005 08:55:18 GMT

Do you have any errors in /var/log/messages? You could configure a remote syslog server.

You may be having a disk problem.

Is a IDE or SCSI disk?

You may try running fsck -b if you use ext3.
Another thing that you can do is install and configure the sysstat package. With sar collecting information, you could see what whas happening when the system stopped. Did you run any package update recently? Configuration changes?

Re: weird problem

Andrew Bruce — Fri, 21 Oct 2005 04:32:34 GMT

You mentioned removing/inserting the keyboard?

Is the keyboard a PS2 keyboard?

Some systems don't like PS2 being 'hotplugged' and can cause this kind of behaviour.

By the way, you don't need to start a new topic when you reply - hit the 'reply' button to keep all the responses to the thread in one, easy to find place! ;-)

Regards,

Andy Bruce

Re: weird problem

Paolo Supino — Wed, 26 Oct 2005 08:20:11 GMT

The keyboard is a PS2 keyboard the system is a Compaq Proliant 1850R (G1) and I doubt that a server grade system suffers from this kind of problems.
I also installed Fedora Core 4 on another 1850R system (just a few minutes ago) and I have the same problem: The moment I press the numlock the system freezes :-(

TIA
Paolo

Re: weird problem

Andrew Bruce — Wed, 26 Oct 2005 09:24:26 GMT

In each case, is it the same PS2 Keyboard? Could it be faulty?

FWIW, one of my customers has two DELL servers, and neither one of them likes the PS2 keyboard to be re-plugged in. We discovered this when we used a KVM switch that obviously wasn't quite up to the task of pretending to be a keyboard when the actual keyboard was switched over to the other machine, IYSWIM!

Regards,

Andy Bruce

Re: weird problem

Paolo Supino — Wed, 26 Oct 2005 09:32:11 GMT

Hi
It's 2 separate keyboards.

Re: weird problem

melvyn burnard — Wed, 26 Oct 2005 10:56:36 GMT

In future, please do not start another thread as a continuation of one you hav eopen already, rather post further information to the existing thread.
I have cut&pasted your origional query into this threqad and removed the origional