Server Problems
I basically built this server from "found" parts. It came from someone's HTPC build, which I got from the same place as those broken MacBooks, and old software, etc. It came in a nondescript case (turned out to be an Antec Overture or something), and I expected it to be some minor-brand P4 build. I was pleasantly surprised to find a shiny Gigabyte board with an aftermarket Zalman CPU fan. On the case was a piece of tape, "needs PCI-EX video card," which it did.
$30, an ATi Radeon 4550, and my old Rosewill Blackbone case later, I got it to boot up to its WinXP install. There were 2 hard drives, one of which had around 13,000 songs on it. The computer froze or something during the file transfer to send the songs over the network, and it turned out both drives had ~2,000 bad sectors, each. Bummer. They were SATA drives too, but from like 2005. Maxtors, *pssh*. Anyway, I bought another 160GB SATA hard drive off eBay, which quickly failed with ~600 bad sectors. That was unfortunate. So I took the 60GB IDE drive from my old server which had exactly 11 bad sectors, and used to make buzzing noises all the time. Ironically, this one had been working just great. The "power on hours" add up to 7.4 years (!).
So I had this running Ubuntu 10.10 (Desktop) for a while, as a web server and such, and it was fine. Until recently, when I couldn't access my websites remotely one day. It was on, but wouldn't respond to network activity, and there was no display on the screen. I pressed Reset, after which the computer got stuck in a 3-4 second rebooting loop, still with no video. I turned off the power supply, let it sit for an hour, and gave it a go later, and it booted up. It ran for a few days, until today, when it froze up again, this time hanging *with* video output (a frozen "Floating Ubuntu" screensaver), but otherwise showed the same symptoms. After a bit of reboot-loop, and a few minutes unplugged, it booted again. Afterward, it froze again within half an hour or so.
Now I have it on the ground next to me, and I'm trying to figure out what's wrong. I recently moved one of the two sticks of RAM from slot 2 to 3 (i.e., I can use Dual Channel now, as opposed to before.) I believe this was in between two freezes, so it had the problem beforehand as well. I would love to ignore the possibility that the RAM is faulty, though I know I shouldn't. Other than trying a single stick of RAM, what should I do? I intend to run memtest86+, because it and the C3 are the only computers I haven't run it on yet... but something tells me, similar to the Proteva, the RAM is fine, but something else weird is causing system hangs.
(The Proteva was obliterated. This computer, however, is rather nice and I'd like to keep it.)
BTW, Specs:
- Gigabyte GA-P45-UD3R
- Intel Core 2 Quad 2.16 GHz
- 2 GB (2 x 1GB) DDR2 1066
- 60GB (WD600) EIDE
- ATi Radeon 4550 (PCIEX_X16)
- Antec EarthWatts 500W PSU
I also pretty much "found" the PSU, though I tested its voltages before using it and they were within .1V of the recommended on all accounts. I believe 12V was 12.0 exactly, according to my RTK-PST. On the other hand, my Phenom II build has 12.2V or so on the 12V line, and it runs very stable all the time.
$30, an ATi Radeon 4550, and my old Rosewill Blackbone case later, I got it to boot up to its WinXP install. There were 2 hard drives, one of which had around 13,000 songs on it. The computer froze or something during the file transfer to send the songs over the network, and it turned out both drives had ~2,000 bad sectors, each. Bummer. They were SATA drives too, but from like 2005. Maxtors, *pssh*. Anyway, I bought another 160GB SATA hard drive off eBay, which quickly failed with ~600 bad sectors. That was unfortunate. So I took the 60GB IDE drive from my old server which had exactly 11 bad sectors, and used to make buzzing noises all the time. Ironically, this one had been working just great. The "power on hours" add up to 7.4 years (!).
So I had this running Ubuntu 10.10 (Desktop) for a while, as a web server and such, and it was fine. Until recently, when I couldn't access my websites remotely one day. It was on, but wouldn't respond to network activity, and there was no display on the screen. I pressed Reset, after which the computer got stuck in a 3-4 second rebooting loop, still with no video. I turned off the power supply, let it sit for an hour, and gave it a go later, and it booted up. It ran for a few days, until today, when it froze up again, this time hanging *with* video output (a frozen "Floating Ubuntu" screensaver), but otherwise showed the same symptoms. After a bit of reboot-loop, and a few minutes unplugged, it booted again. Afterward, it froze again within half an hour or so.
Now I have it on the ground next to me, and I'm trying to figure out what's wrong. I recently moved one of the two sticks of RAM from slot 2 to 3 (i.e., I can use Dual Channel now, as opposed to before.) I believe this was in between two freezes, so it had the problem beforehand as well. I would love to ignore the possibility that the RAM is faulty, though I know I shouldn't. Other than trying a single stick of RAM, what should I do? I intend to run memtest86+, because it and the C3 are the only computers I haven't run it on yet... but something tells me, similar to the Proteva, the RAM is fine, but something else weird is causing system hangs.
(The Proteva was obliterated. This computer, however, is rather nice and I'd like to keep it.)
BTW, Specs:
- Gigabyte GA-P45-UD3R
- Intel Core 2 Quad 2.16 GHz
- 2 GB (2 x 1GB) DDR2 1066
- 60GB (WD600) EIDE
- ATi Radeon 4550 (PCIEX_X16)
- Antec EarthWatts 500W PSU
I also pretty much "found" the PSU, though I tested its voltages before using it and they were within .1V of the recommended on all accounts. I believe 12V was 12.0 exactly, according to my RTK-PST. On the other hand, my Phenom II build has 12.2V or so on the 12V line, and it runs very stable all the time.
Comments
Update: 28 successful Memtest passes over 19 hours, so apparently the RAM and temps should be okay. Checked the Log Viewer, nothing that I could decipher as problematic, just a complete hang, and I don't know why...