Diagnosis: is this machine broken?

[Boggess Rod]

Message: 7

Date: Mon, 29 Nov 2010 19:24:01 +0000

From: Yorvyk <yorvik.ubunto at googlemail.com>

Subject: Re: Diagnosis: is this machine broken?

To: ubuntu-users at lists.ubuntu.com

Message-ID: <20101129192401.1775e7b1.yorvik.ubunto at googlemail.com>

Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8

 

On Mon, 29 Nov 2010 09:36:03 +0800

Sandy Harris <sandyinchina at gmail.com> wrote:

 

> i have a machine -- Atom 1.6 GHz, single core but hyperthreaded, Intel


> board and 2 gigs RAM (the maximum supported). A while ago it began 

> giving many errors, all disk-related, so I replaced the disk.

> 

> Now it mostly runs fine and Checkbox (the tester on the Ubuntu system

> menus) reports all OK, but there are three worrying items. When I try 

> memtest x86+ off the boot menu, it fails with a message about 

> "insufficient low memory". At boot time, there are many error messages


> from udevd along the lines of "worker failed to respond". Finally, the


> drscheme application is horrendously slow; menus take several seconds 

> to open.

> 

> I wonder if there might be some motherboard or RAM fault that caused 

> the earlier disk corruption. If so, replacing the disk will not have 

> fixed it and problems are likely to recur. This is worrying.

> 

> What is my next step in diagnosis here?

> 

Maybe start by just reseating everything.  If you have two sticks of
memory, pull one, swap them, etc. and see which stick the problem
follows.  If you have only one stick you?ll have to find another to try.


 

 

--

Steve Cook (Yorvyk)

 

http://lubuntu.net <http://lubuntu.net/>  

 

 

 

------------------------------

 

I don't have any recommendation on how to continue diagnostics, per se,
but you could start by looking at either System Rescue CD or Ultimate
Boot CD forums. After, of course, booting and running their diagnostic
tools. I'm still learning these various tools, so I'm no help there. But
the UBCD has quite a collection of diagnostics tools available,
including various memory tests, HDD tests, BIOS info tools, etc.

 

I just killed 3 days trying to figure out how to bypass the GParted
check during the Ubuntu Install, only to find out that the entire drive
is so buggy it's black-listed in the Linux kernel (74 GB WD Raptor).
(For the curious, you can zero out the $BadClus block in NTFS using
ntfstruncate -- a very, very bad idea, but they're paying me to break
this drive, so I wanted to give it my best.)

 

I discovered while looking into these tools that you can often recover
much of the data from an otherwise dead drive using various tools.
Unfortunately, I won't even be able to use partimage now before the
drive dies, since the drive can't be mounted. I can see the device,
though, so I might be able to use the dd command. I guess I should look
into that. Anyway, if some part is dying, there should be tools galore
to help you find it, and if it's the hard drive, you might be able to
use these tools to make an image before it's dead.

 

 

 

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