Re: system keeps freezing once every 24 hours / random apps crashing

From: Alistair John Strachan <s0348365@sms.ed.ac.uk>
To: Mark v Wolher <trilight@ns666.com>
Cc: Lee Revell <rlrevell@joe-job.com>,
	Folkert van Heusden <folkert@vanheusden.com>,
	Jesper Juhl <jesper.juhl@gmail.com>,
	Linux Kernel <linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org>
Subject: Re: system keeps freezing once every 24 hours / random apps crashing
Date: Sat, 31 Dec 2005 00:51:03 +0000	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <200512310051.03603.s0348365@sms.ed.ac.uk> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <43B5D3ED.3080504@ns666.com>

On Saturday 31 December 2005 00:42, Mark v Wolher wrote:
> Alistair John Strachan wrote:
> > On Saturday 31 December 2005 00:20, Mark v Wolher wrote:
> > [snip]
> >
> >>>This is good news -- you stand a better chance of achieving the
> >>> stability you require by eliminating variables. VMWare and NVIDIA are
> >>> useful softwares, and I would not deny that, but they are closed source
> >>> and thus any conflicts resulting from their use are not necessary LKML
> >>> material (however, if the interaction is generic and is as a result of
> >>> a kernel bug, then the maintainer would very much like to hear it).
> >>
> >>Okay, i have something interesting now, i only had the nvidia module
> >>loaded so my x-configuration starts up as usual. (not saying the nvidia
> >>module is flawless, i'm sure it still contains bugs)
> >>But here is the crash info, this time it was mozilla, i think this
> >>speaks more hehe :
> >>
> >>Dec 31 00:55:28 localhost kernel: mm/memory.c:106: bad pgd 061f0c08.
> >>Dec 31 00:55:28 localhost kernel: mm/memory.c:106: bad pgd 06b96000.
> >>Dec 31 00:55:28 localhost kernel: mm/memory.c:106: bad pgd 18000bf8.
> >>Dec 31 00:55:28 localhost kernel: ------------[ cut here ]------------
> >>Dec 31 00:55:28 localhost kernel: kernel BUG at mm/mmap.c:2214!
> >>Dec 31 00:55:28 localhost kernel: invalid operand: 0000 [#1]
> >>Dec 31 00:55:28 localhost kernel: SMP
> >>Dec 31 00:55:28 localhost kernel: Modules linked in: nvidia
> >
> > Steady and sure progress. Now, the trace below doesn't explicitly mention
> > any nvidia symbols, but this line must disappear before anybody will
> > bother to read your report.
> >
> > Remove the module. This does not mean unload, this means "never load in
> > the first place". Then reproduce the problem. If you are successful, send
> > a new email (not pinned to this thread) with a subject a la "kernel BUG
> > at mm/mmap.c:2214". State that the kernel is not tainted.
> >
> > At this point all you can do is wait. Good luck!
>
> Well, i guess i'll have to do that to be sure. But i must say that i did
> try the nv module and de-installed the nvidia binary module. It didn't
> matter, the system froze but didn't leave anything in the logs, this
> time it did. Doesn't that help at all ?
>
> I'll try again, put nv up and wait for a something to happen. If some
> one has in the meantime more advise or maybe even could check out of
> curiousity why it says kernel BUG i'd appreciate it ofcourse.

Probably upwards of 95% of BUGs in mm/ are due to defective memory in the 
system running the kernel. However, since you claim to have run other OSes 
successfully on this configuration, I did not suggest it.

However, I would highly recommend running memtest86 at least twice on the 
machine if you cannot track down the source of the problem.

It is always worth eliminating hardware.

-- 
Cheers,
Alistair.

'No sense being pessimistic, it probably wouldn't work anyway.'
Third year Computer Science undergraduate.
1F2 55 South Clerk Street, Edinburgh, UK.