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Date:      Mon, 20 May 1996 12:27:55 +0200 (MET DST)
From:      "Christoph P. Kukulies" <kuku@gilberto.physik.rwth-aachen.de>
To:        martin@cimio.co.uk (Martin Miles)
Cc:        questions@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: Possible BUG
Message-ID:  <199605201027.MAA26738@gilberto.physik.rwth-aachen.de>
In-Reply-To: <31A03369.41C67EA6@cimio.co.uk>

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> Can you help me diagnose a problem that I seem to have with Free BSD.
> 
> I installed FreeBSD from src.doc.ic.ac.uk early in May and have used it for
> the past few weeks.  My problem is this: at seemingly random times and
> without notice the computer reboots. (As if the reset button was pressed).

Are you running X11? 
Are you running certain sort of programs under which this reboot happens?

Is it a VLB or ISA wd controller? Cheap wd controllers are often cause
for instabilities.

> 
> This problem does NOT occur in DOS, and so I think that there may be a 
> software problem in BSD.

This conclusion is not quite justified. A unix system like FreeBSD
imposes another dimension of load to your hardware. It uses a lot
more of the hardware than DOS normally does. Fully utilizes
all the memory you have. Uses DMA, interrupts etc.

> 
> Do you know of any bug which may cause this, or have you had any similar 
> reports ?
> 
> Free BSD is installed on a brand new hard drive, set up to be the slave drive 
> in a two drive IDE system.  The hard drive, being new, is a potential source 
> of the problem.  Do you have any thoughts on this ?  If I can't solve the 
> problem then I'm going to have to remove the BSD partitions and see if the
> drive behaves itself in DOS.

IDE hardware is nothing you should build reliable unix systems upon.
Especially adding a drive later, possibly of another vendor might
be the cause for incompatibilities.


> 
> Thank you very much for any help which you can offer.
> 
> Martin Miles.
> 
> -- 
> 
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--Chris Christoph P. U. Kukulies kuku@gil.physik.rwth-aachen.de



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