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Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.carno.net.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!msunews!news.mtu.edu!newsxfer.itd.umich.edu!newsxfer3.itd.umich.edu!su-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!cam-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.bbnplanet.com!howland.erols.net!feed1.news.erols.com!news From: Ken Bigelow <kbigelow@www.play-hookey.com> Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc Subject: Re: Mysterious reboot Date: Sat, 22 Feb 1997 15:56:35 +0000 Organization: As organized as I ever get... Lines: 53 Message-ID: <330F1732.3AF8@www.play-hookey.com> References: <3306a1ba.35901951@192.168.0.1> Reply-To: kbigelow@www.play-hookey.com NNTP-Posting-Host: kenjb05.play-hookey.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01 (Win16; I) Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc:35949 Brian Scott wrote: > > We've been having one of our servers running FreeBSD 2.1.5 mysteriously reboot > every so often -- it won't stay up for more than a day before rebooting. When it > reboots it doesn't bother to shut things down properly -- it acts like I pushed > the reset button > > I was just wondering about the possible causes. Obviously, there's the hardware > and power aspects, but I've done my best to eliminate those variables by > swapping things around. > > I guess my question is this: could any software that we are running on the > server spontaneously reboot FreeBSD? Could this be the result of a configuration > error on my part, or is it more likely that this is a hardware problem? > > In case it's relevant, the system is a Tyan VX P200 w/ 64mb edo dimms, an Intel > EtherExpress Pro NIC, with a nice Adaptec card + a couple of Seagate Barracudas. > > Thanks, > > Brian Hi, Brian! Sorry to be so late getting back to this NG, but my ISP has been screwing up royally for about a week. No name service, then no route. Guess who's now negotiating for another ISP? Anyway: I can think of two possibilities off the top of my head -- one hardware, one software. On the hardware side, check your power grounds all over the place. Especially in Winter, low humidity allows build-up of static. I've seen this reboot or just lock up computers that were not thoroughly grounded. (Including my own :-( ) Software can reset your computer if it jumps to the ROM BIOS, 1 paragraph (16 bytes) below the top. I use this fact to create a little 5-byte program I call RESET.COM in DOS. It's nothing but a far JMP to FFFF:0000. If you have any program that for some reason does the same thing, you'll get a reset at once. Of the two, I'd look at the hardware side first. It seems more likely, especially if this just started sometime after cold weather arrived. Good luck with it! -- Ken Are you interested in | byte-sized education | http://www.play-hookey.com over the Internet? |