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wdreinhart Guru
Joined: 11 Jun 2003 Posts: 569 Location: 4QFJ12345678
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Posted: Tue May 07, 2013 2:35 pm Post subject: iMac (x86) spontaneously reboots |
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I have a iMac 4,1 (2006, first generation of Intel architecture Macs) that has started rebooting spontaneously.
Things known (or at least suspected) so far:
The reboots began after switching from the generic desktop profile to desktop/kde
If there are any helpful log entries, they're lost before being written to disk. /var/log/messages has normal operating logs before a reboot, then normal boot messages afterward.
It seems like the reboot happens right after a display mode change: screen on/off, starting/stopping X, playing games, etc.
I'm using the new radeon (kms) kernel and xorg drivers, not fglrx.
The machine was running kernel 3.8.8 when I first encountered the reboots, I've tested 3.9.0 and back as far as 3.8.4, and they still happen.
It's not caused by a kernel panic, I have /proc/sys/kernel/panic set to 0, so no rebooting after a panic.
My memtest86 disc won't boot thanks to Apple's insanely great () EFI implementation.
Any ideas? It's driving me crazy! |
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ulenrich Veteran
Joined: 10 Oct 2010 Posts: 1480
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Posted: Tue May 07, 2013 4:40 pm Post subject: |
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There is only special to profile kde/use.force
consolekit
policykit |
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Ant P. Watchman
Joined: 18 Apr 2009 Posts: 6920
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Posted: Tue May 07, 2013 5:43 pm Post subject: |
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Check your hardware sensors - iMacs are infamous for poor build quality (far too much thermal paste) causing CPUs to overheat past their hardware thresholds. |
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wdreinhart Guru
Joined: 11 Jun 2003 Posts: 569 Location: 4QFJ12345678
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Posted: Tue May 07, 2013 7:16 pm Post subject: |
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Hmmm, the CPU temp is getting up to 62C in the middle of emerging LibreOffice. Intel docs say it should be OK up to 100, but that sounds very hot to me. I'll bump the minimum fan speeds up and see if it helps. |
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Ant P. Watchman
Joined: 18 Apr 2009 Posts: 6920
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Posted: Tue May 07, 2013 7:27 pm Post subject: |
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62°C under load sounds perfectly reasonable - that's probably not the cause then. |
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Voltago Advocate
Joined: 02 Sep 2003 Posts: 2593 Location: userland
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Posted: Tue May 07, 2013 7:47 pm Post subject: |
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If you can get hold of two usb-to-serial adapters and a null-modem cable, you could build yourself a serial console viewable from another machine, and hope that the error message still gets transmitted (if not, chances are your hardware is broken anyways I'd say...). Or another way (which I'm not sure will work though): Mount /var/log on a non-system drive (maybe a reasonably fast usb key might work) with mount-option 'sync', again hoping that the write operation will complete before the system goes down. |
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Hu Moderator
Joined: 06 Mar 2007 Posts: 21642
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Posted: Tue May 07, 2013 9:54 pm Post subject: |
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If a second system is available, using netconsole is probably easier than trying to create a serial console on a machine that lacks serial. |
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Voltago Advocate
Joined: 02 Sep 2003 Posts: 2593 Location: userland
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Posted: Tue May 07, 2013 10:14 pm Post subject: |
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Hu wrote: | If a second system is available, using netconsole is probably easier than trying to create a serial console on a machine that lacks serial. |
There is a netconsole nowadays? Truly, this is the future! (Coming to think of it, it probably has been around for a long time) |
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wdreinhart Guru
Joined: 11 Jun 2003 Posts: 569 Location: 4QFJ12345678
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Posted: Wed May 08, 2013 5:21 pm Post subject: |
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Hu wrote: | If a second system is available, using netconsole is probably easier than trying to create a serial console on a machine that lacks serial. |
Definitely easier, since the only machine I have with serial ports is headless. I'll build a kernel with netconsole tonight and see what it captures. |
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