I have an old AMD-K6 266 MHz PC with 128 MB of RAM that I upgraded from
Debian 3.1 to Debian 4.0 by doing the "apt-get dist-upgrade" while on
the Internet.

It was crashing for a few days, but it isn't the Debian OS because it
also crashed when using a DSL LiveCD and a Knoppix LiveCD. I thought
that those tests would eliminate the Debian OS as well as the HDD.

It ran for a week without crashing when running from tomsrtbt on a floppy.

I fired it up again on the Debian 4.0 installed on the HDD and it ran OK
for a week until I accidentally killed the AC power feed which ended the
week's uptime. Then I added a UPS and rebooted it.

It has ran for 5 days without failure until a short while ago.

I had a tail -f running on the syslog and just now when I checked it I
noticed the box was in trouble.

john@optima12:~$ date
Tue Apr 29 22:57:46 CDT 2008
john@optima12:~$ uptime
08:18:02 up 4 days, 10:23, 3 users, load average: 0.04, 0.02, 0.00
john@optima12:~$
Message from syslogd@optima12 at Wed Apr 30 11:56:39 2008 ...
optima12 kernel: Oops: 0000 [#1]

Message from syslogd@optima12 at Wed Apr 30 11:56:39 2008 ...
optima12 kernel: CPU: 0

Message from syslogd@optima12 at Wed Apr 30 11:56:39 2008 ...
optima12 kernel: EIP is at drain_array+0x10/0x7f

Message from syslogd@optima12 at Wed Apr 30 11:56:39 2008 ...
optima12 kernel: eax: 00000000 ebx: c7f0a220 ecx: 07ecb000 edx:
c7f0a220

Message from syslogd@optima12 at Wed Apr 30 11:56:39 2008 ...
optima12 kernel: esi: c7fb48a0 edi: 07ecb000 ebp: c7fb48a0 esp:
c7b51f54

Message from syslogd@optima12 at Wed Apr 30 11:56:39 2008 ...
optima12 kernel: ds: 007b es: 007b ss: 0068

Message from syslogd@optima12 at Wed Apr 30 11:56:39 2008 ...
optima12 kernel: Process events/0 (pid: 3, ti=c7b50000 task=c7b40030
task.ti=c7b 50000)

Message from syslogd@optima12 at Wed Apr 30 11:56:39 2008 ...
optima12 kernel: Stack: c7f0a220 c7fb48a0 c7b60740 00000000 c014703b
00000000 00 000000 00000292

Message from syslogd@optima12 at Wed Apr 30 11:56:39 2008 ...
optima12 kernel: c036bd80 c012075a c014700d c7b60750 c7b60740
c7b60748 00 000000 c0120c30

Message from syslogd@optima12 at Wed Apr 30 11:56:40 2008 ...
optima12 kernel: 00000001 00000000 c7b40ab0 00010000 00000000
00000000 c7 b40030 c0111cba

Message from syslogd@optima12 at Wed Apr 30 11:56:40 2008 ...
optima12 kernel: Call Trace:

Message from syslogd@optima12 at Wed Apr 30 11:56:40 2008 ...
optima12 kernel: Code: 24 08 83 c5 04 8b 44 24 04 39 44 24 08 0f 8c 40
ff ff ff 83 c4 0c 5b 5e 5f 5d c3 55 57 56 53 89 c5 89 cf 8b 44 24 14 85
c9 74 6a <83> 39 00 74 65 83 79 0c 00 74 0d 85 c0 75 09 c7 41 0c 00 00 00

Message from syslogd@optima12 at Wed Apr 30 11:56:40 2008 ...
optima12 kernel: EIP: [<c01461d8>] drain_array+0x10/0x7f SS:ESP
0068:c7b51f54


Then I tried to see if the box was still alive:


john@optima12:~$ date
Segmentation fault
john@optima12:~$
Message from syslogd@optima12 at Wed Apr 30 12:09:59 2008 ...
optima12 kernel: Oops: 0000 [#2]

Message from syslogd@optima12 at Wed Apr 30 12:09:59 2008 ...
optima12 kernel: CPU: 0

Message from syslogd@optima12 at Wed Apr 30 12:09:59 2008 ...
optima12 kernel: EIP is at cache_alloc_refill+0xf0/0x3ea

Message from syslogd@optima12 at Wed Apr 30 12:09:59 2008 ...
optima12 kernel: eax: 00000000 ebx: c7fb08e0 ecx: 00000000 edx:
00000000

Message from syslogd@optima12 at Wed Apr 30 12:10:00 2008 ...
optima12 kernel: esi: 05836020 edi: c7ecc3e0 ebp: c7e990c0 esp:
c3b91ce8

Message from syslogd@optima12 at Wed Apr 30 12:10:00 2008 ...
optima12 kernel: ds: 007b es: 007b ss: 0068

Message from syslogd@optima12 at Wed Apr 30 12:10:00 2008 ...
optima12 kernel: Process bash (pid: 1092, ti=c3b90000 task=c7dd5030
task.ti=c3b90000)

Message from syslogd@optima12 at Wed Apr 30 12:10:00 2008 ...
optima12 kernel: Stack: c3b91dc0 000000d0 c7fb4840 0000001b 00000000
00000000 c88d33c4 018b2900

Message from syslogd@optima12 at Wed Apr 30 12:10:00 2008 ...
optima12 kernel: 00000000 c015bff7 00000282 c7ed4e00 c111a260
c7ed4e00 c0146357 00000001

Message from syslogd@optima12 at Wed Apr 30 12:10:00 2008 ...
optima12 kernel: Call Trace:

Message from syslogd@optima12 at Wed Apr 30 12:10:00 2008 ...
optima12 kernel: Code: 00 00 8b 4d 00 8b 5e 14 8b 44 24 08 8b 50 10 0f
af d3 03 56 0c 8b 04 24 40 89 46 10 8b 44 9e 1c 89 46 14 89 54 8d 10 41
89 4d 00 <8b> 56 10 89 14 24 8b 4c 24 08 3b 51 1c 73 0b ff 4c 24 0c 83 7c

Message from syslogd@optima12 at Wed Apr 30 12:10:00 2008 ...
optima12 kernel: EIP: [<c014644f>] cache_alloc_refill+0xf0/0x3ea SS:ESP
0068:c3b91ce8

Message from syslogd@optima12 at Wed Apr 30 12:10:00 2008 ...
optima12 kernel: c88dd2d1 c015c10d 00000001 00000000 c111a260
c015cbfd c88d6989 00000001


At this point the SSH connection stopped responding, and I cannot
reconnect remotely. I'll have to physically visit the computer and see
what it is doing and reboot it.

Oops is briefly described here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_kernel_oops

I have Debian 4.0 running on several other computers without any
problems, and Debian 3.1 running on identical PC hardware without
problems. I don't suspect Debian, but if there is a clue to a hardware
failure location, it would be of great assistance to pinpoint it.

Any ideas of the cause and solution?

Should this be provided to Debian for bug tracking? If so, what is the
best URL?



--

John

No Microsoft, Apple, Intel, Trend Micro, nor Ford products were used in the preparation or transmission of this message.

The EULA sounds like it was written by a team of lawyers who want to tell me what I can't do. The GPL sounds like it was written by a human being, who wants me to know what I can do.