diagnosing possible hardware problem

[Felix Miata]

On 06/10/13 17:24 (GMT-0700) Constantine Evans apparently typed:

> I apologise for so many people here not understanding your method of 
> installation. The standard way of installing Ubuntu is with a CD, and it 
> appears that many people don't know about network based installs. Which 
> is a pity, because they are very nice, especially since they don't 
> require a CD, and are so flexible.

> Felix Miata wrote:

>> I've been having all kinds of strange problems installing and using ubuntu
>> and its various desktop flavors on 3 i440BX systems for over a week and a
>> half. Most of the problems seem to be connected to one of the 3 HDs I've
>> used, even though I've run the Seatools diagnostic program on it, which
>> claims there is no problem with the device. A new 80 pin cable changed
>> nothing. I've also run memtest86+ for over 8 hours without errors. The
>> various errors include, but are not limited to:

>> installer packaging errors
>> installer can't find kernel to install
>> apt-get/dpkg errors (e.g. tarfile corruption)
>> file not found errors
>> CRC errors

> All of those really point toward the hard drive. I wouldn't trust the 
> diagnostic program - have you tried running badblocks on the drive?

>> I was not able to get a working installation without using the installation
>> kernel parameters acpi=off and ide=nodma. I haven't been able to find any
>> clues in /var/log anywhere, but I tend to think most of the errors are (old)
>> hardware compatibility issues with their main root in the Seagate HD.

> acpi=off is probably required because a systems probably don't have 
> ACPI, and nodma is quite possibly a similar issue. How old are these, 
> and what are there specs?

About 8 years. Didn't check any specific specs, but I know the 440BX chipset
supports max UDMA33, which is what the HD is.

>> Right now I have the Xubuntu desktop running, and booted on acpi=off and
>> noapic kernel parameters. Is there something already installed or that I can
>> apt-get that will rigorously test the hardware and report any errors it
>> finds? Is there one particular situation that results in CRC errors?

> Badblocks for the hard drive. memtest for the memory. But it really 

I already reported 8+ hours on memtest86+ with 0 errors.

> sounds like the hard drive, in which case badblocks should be what you 
> need. I wouldn't try to use the drive by disabling the blocks that 
> badblocks reports as bad though - this generally results in catastrophic 
> failure eventually (though it might take longer with older drives).

badblocks -p # -v -s:
10 passes on /boot (hda1)
40 more passes on /boot
(1 cylinder vfat hda2 never mounted)
40 passes on vfat (hda3)
10 passes on swapper (hda5)
40 passes on / (hda6)
0 total bad blocks found on 140 passes
-- 
"The Lord is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in him,
and I am helped."				Psalm 28:7 NIV

 Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409

Felix Miata  ***  http://mrmazda.no-ip.com/