>
> On Sat, Oct 11, 2008 at 11:22:21AM -0400, Tuc wrote:
> > I have a 5.5-STABLE laptop thats been having issues lately, mostly
> > related to memory. I bought new chips, and I think I narrowed it down to one
> > of the Dimm slots being bad. I did a memtest for 25 hours and it seemed
> > stable.
>
> memtest86+ would definitely detect a DIMM slot being bad, so running it
> for 25 hours successfully means the DIMM and the DIMM slot is likely fine.
>
Sorry, 2 corrections. :)
1) I ran memtest86+ 3.4
2) If I tried to run the memory test on the slot I thought was bad,
it looked like whatever is underneath the memtest86+ (Linux?) would crap out
within 6 seconds of startup. I've only tested the "B" slot after running into
so many issues with the "A" slot (And I checked, you can run one slot only
on this laptop... Dell Inspiron 8200)
>
> > I started up and started downloading a backup of over 5K emails. (All have
> > to go through mimedefang, procmail and sendmail... So the system was a bit
> > sluggish. I started to get things like :
> >
> > Oct 10 22:06:29 himinbjorg kernel: KDB: stack backtrace:
> > Oct 10 22:06:29 himinbjorg kernel:
> > kdb_backtrace(c3053200,1,dbb54c04,dbb54bf0,c0
> > 73ba78) at kdb_backtrace+0x29
> > Oct 10 22:06:29 himinbjorg kernel: getdirtybuf(dbb54be0,0,1,cc1c81e8,1) at
> > getdi
> > rtybuf+0x27
> > Oct 10 22:06:29 himinbjorg kernel: flush_deplist(c305354c,1,dbb54c04) at
> > flush_d
> > eplist+0x34
> > Oct 10 22:06:29 himinbjorg kernel:
> > flush_inodedep_deps(c216d000,715e,c089bcf8,c0
> > 808b16,ef) at flush_inodedep_deps+0x7d
> > Oct 10 22:06:29 himinbjorg kernel: softdep_sync_metadata(dbb54ca0) at
> > softdep_sy
> > nc_metadata+0x8c
> > Oct 10 22:06:29 himinbjorg kernel: ffs_fsync(dbb54ca0) at ffs_fsync+0x33e
> > Oct 10 22:06:29 himinbjorg kernel: fsync(c3549600,dbb54d04,1,1,286) at
> > fsync+0x1
> > 03
> > Oct 10 22:06:29 himinbjorg kernel: syscall(2f,2f,bfbf002f,80fef20,0) at
> > syscall+
> > 0x227
> > Oct 10 22:06:29 himinbjorg kernel: Xint0x80_syscall() at
> > Xint0x80_syscall+0x1f
> > Oct 10 22:06:29 himinbjorg kernel: --- syscall (95, FreeBSD ELF32, fsync),
> > eip =
> > 0x28181ca7, esp = 0xbfbf6d1c, ebp = 0xbfbf86e8 ---
>
> This looks more like a filesystem problem, not a memory problem. All
> of the functions listed in the backtrace show UFS/FFS problems and
> filesystem metadata issues of some kind.
>
Yup, sorry. I should have said that I realized it was a disk issue, but
that I was thinking that maybe it wasn't really the OS's fault that there are
"deeper" problems with the laptop that could be manifesting themselves here.
When I sent all sorts of copious debug to Dell they just told me to replace
the motherboard completely. I didn't want to spend the $$. At first all the
problems manifested as memory, memtest86+ would lock up, "crash", etc with the
memory I had. I bought new memory ($50 for a gig) BEFORE Dell just told me to
replace the whole motherboard. With the new memory in, only using the "B" slot,
it appeared more stable. I found these issues only accidentally. I tend to
type "dmesg" when my fingers are idle and my brain is spinning thinking of
something and thats when I saw this cruft.
>
> Booting the machine in single-user mode and run "fsck -y". I'm betting
> you'll find errors. If not, then it's probably a kernel bug -- see
> below, however.
>
Probably could use it, yea. It had locked up a few times so I'm
sure the filesystems weren't in great shape. I thought I had offline
fsck'd them, but now not so sure.
>
> I doubt you're going to get much support on this, since you're running
> FreeBSD 5.5, which is no longer supported. Believe me: you will get
> continual push-back from the rest of the FreeBSD developers asking for
> support on 5.5. The RELENG_6 series is on its way out as well, so
> you should consider installing RELENG_7 (specifically 7.1-BETA at
> this point).
>
Well, that was 1/2 of the reason why I asked if it was even
worth it to trace it out. 1/2 was the fact its 5.5, the other 1/2 was
that I've already been told to replace the motherboard. :)
I tried going to 6.X on this machine for a few weeks once before,
constantly locked up in the booting of the kernel. I haven't had a spare
second otherwise to consider going to 7. I didn't think anyone would
really want to help on 5.5, but figured I'd toss it out there and see if
anyone thought it worth while.
Thanks Jeremy.
Tuc
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