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PostPosted: Sat Nov 05, 2011 9:42 am 
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Joined: Tue Mar 28, 2006 8:26 pm
Posts: 804
Location: Minneapolis, MN
My Knoppmyth R5.5 machine has started randomly locking up in the last couple of months. It was happening once a week. Now it's once a day.
This week, my wife watched the machine and rebooted it (by holding the power button down for 4 seconds) after each lockup. One day it locked up 3 times!

The lockup screens look similar to this:
Image

The images are always a pattern of garbage.

Troubleshooting steps thus far:
1. cloned contents of previous 2TB, Seagate SATA hard drive to new 2TB Seagate SATA hard drive.

The hard drive swap eliminated that specific hard drive as the cause.

Are there any logs that might point me to a specific cause?

The machine specs line up with my signature on the message footer.

Thanks for any tips!
Eric

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KnoppMyth R5.5, Asus A8N-VM CSM (nvidia 6150 onboard video), AMD Athlon 64 dual-core 4200+, two 1GB sticks DDR 400, HD-3000 HDTV card, PVR-150 card, Iguanaworks RS-232 IR receiver/transmitter, Pioneer DVR-110 DVD burner


Last edited by neutron68 on Sun Dec 11, 2011 12:08 pm, edited 1 time in total.


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PostPosted: Sat Nov 05, 2011 6:22 pm 
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Joined: Wed May 09, 2007 8:47 pm
Posts: 367
Location: Minnesota- Brrrrr!
My box went down because the logs exploded (became so large, they filled up the partition). I am not suggesting that this is your problem and can quickly elminate this possibility with

[root@mythtv ~]# df -h
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda1 4.9G 3.2G 1.4G 70% /
none 996M 0 996M 0% /dev/shm
/dev/sda3 181G 140G 32G 82% /myth
/dev/sdc1 466G 6.6G 460G 2% /media/500
/dev/sdb1 2.0T 945G 1009G 49% /media/MEDIA
/dev/sdb2 842G 720G 122G 86% /media/DATA

I would suggest considering posting your logs at pastebin.com and post the link for the community.

If you have the ability to eliminate the power supply as the problem, that may be desirable. I keep my system on a UPS because that provides me the assurance that my $600 investment is protected. The problem is that power issues can manifest symptoms that are often difficult to troubleshoot. If your box is not on a quality UPS, then I can not overemphasize its importance.

Stripping the system to its bare essentials (removing TV tuner, all PCI, USB components) and gradually adding components until you reproduce the issue may be the strategy to adopt.

You could also try booting from a linux boot disc like Systemrescuecd to attempt to reproduce the problem. If you can, then you have eliminated software as the problem and can go after the hardware.

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 Post subject: good ideas
PostPosted: Sat Nov 05, 2011 9:42 pm 
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Joined: Tue Mar 28, 2006 8:26 pm
Posts: 804
Location: Minneapolis, MN
Those are good ideas.

My drive partitions are not totally filled. I keep careful watch on them.
Code:
root@mythtv:/# df -h
Filesystem            Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda1             4.6G  3.5G  909M  80% /
/dev/sda3             1.8T  1.6T  104G  95% /myth
tmpfs                 981M  4.0K  981M   1% /dev/shm


I have my mythtv box plugged into an APC X1000 ups, so I believe that base is covered.

I will try a power supply swap tomorrow, since that is a fairly easy swap.

I have an identical motherboard which I could swap in, as another possible swap. It's not my first choice because it will take a lot of effort to remove the current board and swap in the backup.

I'll try and get my logs pulled together as I try some of your ideas.

Eric

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KnoppMyth R5.5, Asus A8N-VM CSM (nvidia 6150 onboard video), AMD Athlon 64 dual-core 4200+, two 1GB sticks DDR 400, HD-3000 HDTV card, PVR-150 card, Iguanaworks RS-232 IR receiver/transmitter, Pioneer DVR-110 DVD burner


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 Post subject: replaced Power Supply
PostPosted: Wed Nov 16, 2011 10:52 pm 
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Joined: Tue Mar 28, 2006 8:26 pm
Posts: 804
Location: Minneapolis, MN
On Sunday, I replaced the power supply in the pc.
The machine locked up within 10 seconds of rebooting.
It appears the power supply was not the problem either...

What logs are helpful?

It locked-up around:
04:47 (AM) Nov.13

mythbackend.log
http://pastebin.com/G2bXHruY

mythfrontend.log
http://pastebin.com/SvESyTts
Eric

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KnoppMyth R5.5, Asus A8N-VM CSM (nvidia 6150 onboard video), AMD Athlon 64 dual-core 4200+, two 1GB sticks DDR 400, HD-3000 HDTV card, PVR-150 card, Iguanaworks RS-232 IR receiver/transmitter, Pioneer DVR-110 DVD burner


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Wed Nov 16, 2011 11:02 pm 
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Joined: Tue Aug 15, 2006 11:14 am
Posts: 1343
Location: Orlando FL
try swapping the ram around. put just one stick in to each of the slots

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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Thu Nov 17, 2011 9:35 am 
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Posts: 507
I would suspect the video card.


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 Post subject: memory
PostPosted: Thu Nov 17, 2011 9:44 am 
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Joined: Tue Mar 28, 2006 8:26 pm
Posts: 804
Location: Minneapolis, MN
mattbatt wrote:
try swapping the ram around. put just one stick in to each of the slots

Do you mean just 1 stick at a time?

Is there any way to see evidence of bad RAM in any of the log files?

_________________
KnoppMyth R5.5, Asus A8N-VM CSM (nvidia 6150 onboard video), AMD Athlon 64 dual-core 4200+, two 1GB sticks DDR 400, HD-3000 HDTV card, PVR-150 card, Iguanaworks RS-232 IR receiver/transmitter, Pioneer DVR-110 DVD burner


Last edited by neutron68 on Thu Nov 17, 2011 9:48 am, edited 1 time in total.


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 Post subject: video card
PostPosted: Thu Nov 17, 2011 9:47 am 
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Joined: Tue Mar 28, 2006 8:26 pm
Posts: 804
Location: Minneapolis, MN
jams wrote:
I would suspect the video card.

Is there any way to see evidence of that in any of the log files?

All the card slots in the pc are full, so I can't just swap out video cards.

The video is an onboard nvidia 6150 chip. If that chip is bad, then a motherboard swap will be necessary to fix the problem.

_________________
KnoppMyth R5.5, Asus A8N-VM CSM (nvidia 6150 onboard video), AMD Athlon 64 dual-core 4200+, two 1GB sticks DDR 400, HD-3000 HDTV card, PVR-150 card, Iguanaworks RS-232 IR receiver/transmitter, Pioneer DVR-110 DVD burner


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Thu Nov 17, 2011 11:04 am 
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Joined: Thu Sep 27, 2007 5:44 pm
Posts: 580
I've been having the same issue for over a year now on my box. I think the motherboard is the problem, because I have tried replacing (virtually) everything else. Here is my post with a photo similar to yours:
http://mysettopbox.tv/phpBB2/viewtopic. ... highlight=

I am using an ASUS M2NPV-VM motherboard. I thought it was the onboard video so I replaced it with a PCI express video card, but it still happened. I have tried different ram, more ram, and no improvement. I believe I replaced the processor and power supply since this began as well. I think the problem may stem from the Northbridge rather than the video card itself.

I am considering replacing the whole thing with an intel atom system, but I need it to have a pci slot for my PVR-500, HDMI or DVI video output, optical audio output, and a serial port. I haven't yet found one which can do all of this :(

I am currently on one of the R6 releases, and was considering upgrading to R7 this weekend to see if it may have just been driver/software related, but I highly doubt it. I would be interested to know if you are able to resolve the problem, because my wife has about had it with this. It probably happens a couple times per week.


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Thu Nov 17, 2011 5:34 pm 
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Joined: Wed Nov 16, 2005 8:55 pm
Posts: 1381
Location: Farmington, MI USA
My first thought when encountering mysterious lockups is heat. I have made it a habit to blow out each of my systems with a compressor (careful, make sure you have a moisture filter on it, or use those cans of compressed air from the office supply stores) every 6 months to clear the dust-bunnies out of the PSU, all fans and the CPU heatsink. Have not had issues since instituting this schedule.

@neutron68: Check to make sure all fans are spinning at a reasonable speed. Check your temps with sensors, might want to setup a script that runs this every so often, placing the output to a file so you can review it after a lockup.

@knappster: You could be right about the Northbridge on the M2NPV-VM. The stock heatsink on my M2NPV-VMs weren't making very good contact due to the thermal paste they used at the factory, I removed each of them and replaced the paste. No problems with any of my 4 boards in years since I did that. I also had one board that would freak out in different ways with no apparent consistency, since upgrading the BIOS on that one it has been well-behaved (according to dmidecode that one is running BIOS rev 1401)


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Thu Nov 17, 2011 8:55 pm 
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Joined: Thu Mar 25, 2004 11:00 am
Posts: 9551
Location: Arlington, MA
I've got a random hang in 6.04 where the UI goes nonresponsive, which seems to be related to the X server. The system ends up with either the myth front end or the X server spinning at 100% CPU usage. On the latest occurrence I found this in the X log:
Quote:
[mi] EQ overflowing. The server is probably stuck in an infinite loop.

Backtrace:
0: X(xorg_backtrace+0x3b) [0x813014b]
1: X(mieqEnqueue+0x289) [0x810f739]
2: X(xf86PostMotionEventP+0xc2) [0x80c2e42]
3: X(xf86PostMotionEvent+0x68) [0x80c2fa8]
4: /usr/lib/xorg/modules/input//mouse_drv.so [0xb77c1a54]
5: /usr/lib/xorg/modules/input//mouse_drv.so [0xb77c2147]
6: /usr/lib/xorg/modules/input//mouse_drv.so [0xb77c26f2]
7: X [0x80c4f27]
8: X [0x80b34de]
9: [0xb7f1a400]
[mi] EQ overflowing. The server is probably stuck in an infinite loop.
[mi] EQ overflowing. The server is probably stuck in an infinite loop.
[mi] EQ overflowing. The server is probably stuck in an infinite loop.

No idea if it's related, but it might be worth checking your X logs.


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Fri Nov 18, 2011 1:56 pm 
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Joined: Thu Sep 27, 2007 5:44 pm
Posts: 580
slowtolearn wrote:
My first thought when encountering mysterious lockups is heat. I have made it a habit to blow out each of my systems with a compressor (careful, make sure you have a moisture filter on it, or use those cans of compressed air from the office supply stores) every 6 months to clear the dust-bunnies out of the PSU, all fans and the CPU heatsink. Have not had issues since instituting this schedule.

@neutron68: Check to make sure all fans are spinning at a reasonable speed. Check your temps with sensors, might want to setup a script that runs this every so often, placing the output to a file so you can review it after a lockup.

@knappster: You could be right about the Northbridge on the M2NPV-VM. The stock heatsink on my M2NPV-VMs weren't making very good contact due to the thermal paste they used at the factory, I removed each of them and replaced the paste. No problems with any of my 4 boards in years since I did that. I also had one board that would freak out in different ways with no apparent consistency, since upgrading the BIOS on that one it has been well-behaved (according to dmidecode that one is running BIOS rev 1401)



Thanks for the response. It's probably a good idea to try to re-apply thermal paste on the northbridge and reseat the heatsink. I thought it looked crooked on mine actually, and I thought about reseating it when I noticed, but it did not seem like it wanted to come off and I think I saw pictures of it online where it looked crooked as well, so I assumed it was just how it was designed. Is there any trick to removing it? I have read that most/all aftermarket northbridge heatsinks will not fit on it as well, so we're stuck with the dinky one that comes with it. I have BIOS 1401 as well. I wouldn't be so hesitant to start over except for all of the little things I have had to do to get everything working as it should.

I also discovered that I have an Abit AN-M2 in my closet that they sent me as a warranty replacement for a different board a couple years ago. I have never tried to even power it on yet, so I may try moving everything to it and praying that it just works without reinstalling. The only disadvantage is that it has no serial port, or even a serial port header. I would have to buy a PCI serial port in order to use my homebrew IR blaster :(


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 Post subject: thoughts
PostPosted: Fri Nov 18, 2011 5:53 pm 
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Joined: Tue Mar 28, 2006 8:26 pm
Posts: 804
Location: Minneapolis, MN
slowtolearn wrote:
My first thought when encountering mysterious lockups is heat. I have made it a habit to blow out each of my systems with a compressor (careful, make sure you have a moisture filter on it, or use those cans of compressed air from the office supply stores) every 6 months to clear the dust-bunnies out of the PSU, all fans and the CPU heatsink. Have not had issues since instituting this schedule.

Agreed! I also blow out my KM box with an air compressor. I hit all the fans and heat sinks. I do it more often than you - every 3 months.
I blew out all the dust and checked the fans this past weekend. 10 seconds after boot (all parts room temp), the first lockup occurred!

There are 2 case fans pulling air out the back and one case fan forcing air in the front (onto the hard drive slot). There is also the power supply fan pulling air out of the case.


slowtolearn wrote:
@neutron68: Check to make sure all fans are spinning at a reasonable speed. Check your temps with sensors, might want to setup a script that runs this every so often, placing the output to a file so you can review it after a lockup.

A good thought. (With tjc's help) I have only been able to get the RRD Tool graphs to read the hard drive temperature. The CPU and Motherboard temp graph is empty.
Image
Image

There are wired probes that are part of the pc case. I stuck the CPU probe in the fins of the CPU heat sink and can see the CPU temp go up and down with load. That CPU sensor never gets above 40C.

slowtolearn wrote:
@knappster: You could be right about the Northbridge on the M2NPV-VM. The stock heatsink on my M2NPV-VMs weren't making very good contact due to the thermal paste they used at the factory, I removed each of them and replaced the paste. No problems with any of my 4 boards in years since I did that. I also had one board that would freak out in different ways with no apparent consistency, since upgrading the BIOS on that one it has been well-behaved (according to dmidecode that one is running BIOS rev 1401)

Hummmmm. I wonder if my northbridge heat sink paste has dried out? I've never touched it and the motherboard is from 2006.

I've got a 2nd motherboard (same exact Asus model) I can swap in place of the current board. That should weed out hardware problems on the current board. If lockups still occur, software is the only remaining factor.

Eric

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KnoppMyth R5.5, Asus A8N-VM CSM (nvidia 6150 onboard video), AMD Athlon 64 dual-core 4200+, two 1GB sticks DDR 400, HD-3000 HDTV card, PVR-150 card, Iguanaworks RS-232 IR receiver/transmitter, Pioneer DVR-110 DVD burner


Last edited by neutron68 on Sat Nov 19, 2011 10:13 am, edited 1 time in total.


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 Post subject: bizarre symptom
PostPosted: Fri Nov 18, 2011 7:08 pm 
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Joined: Tue Mar 28, 2006 8:26 pm
Posts: 804
Location: Minneapolis, MN
Here's a weird data point...

The machine looks like it's locked up tonight (Friday), but parts of it are functioning!
The screen has a random garbage pattern on it, but I AM able to log into the mythweb interface from other computers!

From looking around mythweb, it looks like it recorded the Nightly Busniess Report and Mad Money ok this afternoon, and even finished the commercial flagging job on Mad Money. One piece that doesn't seem to be working right (along with the garbage display) is SSH. I am able to start an SSH login (it asks me for a user name), but it never comes back and asks me for a password. It just sits there. So, I can't SSH into the machine.

The RRD Graphs in Knoppmyth show that around midnight last night there was a spike in CPU usage and had been high (50%) until I rebooted
Image
Image
I had to reboot (so I could gain control again) and look at the logs and see if there is anything in the log from around midnight.

Eric

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KnoppMyth R5.5, Asus A8N-VM CSM (nvidia 6150 onboard video), AMD Athlon 64 dual-core 4200+, two 1GB sticks DDR 400, HD-3000 HDTV card, PVR-150 card, Iguanaworks RS-232 IR receiver/transmitter, Pioneer DVR-110 DVD burner


Last edited by neutron68 on Sat Nov 19, 2011 10:21 am, edited 1 time in total.


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 Post subject: Re: bizarre symptom
PostPosted: Fri Nov 18, 2011 7:26 pm 
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Joined: Thu Sep 27, 2007 5:44 pm
Posts: 580
neutron68 wrote:
Here's a weird data point...

The machine looks like it's locked up tonight (Friday), but parts of it are functioning!
The screen has a random garbage pattern on it, but I AM able to log into the mythweb interface from other computers!

From looking around mythweb, it looks like it recorded the Nightly Busniess Report and Mad Money ok this afternoon, and even finished the commercial flagging job on Mad Money. One piece that doesn't seem to be working right (along with the garbage display) is SSH. I am able to start an SSH login (it asks me for a user name), but it never comes back and asks me for a password. It just sits there. So, I can't SSH into the machine.

The RRD Graphs in Knoppmyth show that around midnight last night there was a spike in CPU usage and it's been high (50%) ever since. I'll have to reboot (so I can gain control again) and look at the logs and see if there is anything in the log from around midnight last night.

Eric


That is definitely different than my lockups. I have hard lockups where the HDD activity completely stops, RRD stops logging, I cannot get to the login screen in ssh or mythweb. I would think you would get some sort of log on yours where something has gone awry. Maybe your /var/log/Xorg.0.log files will provide some information since your display gets goofed up when the CPU shoots up. Good luck!


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