Re: red-handed

[Jeff Sturm <jsturm1 home com>]

Greg Lindahl wrote:
> I'd been having some odd lockups of my PC164LX machines... they'd be
> fine, and then they'd be pingable but you can't log in, and the
> console is unresponsive.
> 
> I got on one right before it crashed and netstat -to showed the timers
> weren't changing. Then later I got on aother right before it crashed,
> and realized that "date" wasn't changing. Then I made a script which
> ran date on each machine every 10 seconds. Machines that crash
> definitely have stopped clocks.
> 
> Given that I saw this under 2.0.35 and 2.2.5-16 (rh 6.0's kernel), I
> don't think it's a kernel bug. The only hardware oddity that I know of
> is that when you reboot these guys, the cmos date is always wrong. I'm
> going to replace all the batteries... could that possibly cause this
> symptom?

I'd guess it's worth a try... I finally replaced the battery on my 164SX
after two years.  For the last six months it had been losing the time when
I powered off, although the clock was fine (both CMOS and kernel clock) as
long as the board was powered up.  The time never advanced when the power
was off... on the next boot it would have exactly the same time as on the
last shutdown.

I've never had a lockup, but I don't have an LX either. Perhaps it would
have exhibited other strange symptoms if I kept running with the dead
battery.

It seems the batteries don't last long in these things anyway.


--
Jeff Sturm
jsturm1@home.com