[NCLUG] Intro/ Compaq problem w/RH6.2

[Michael Dwyer]

> Rich Young writes...
> > only idle computer in the office.)  The problem is that the machine
keeps
> > dying on me -- overnight or during the weekends.  By "dying", I mean
that it
> > drops my open telnet session, and when I plug a monitor & keyboard into
it,
>
> What's the last thing that gets written to syslog?

If it isn't apm/acpi stuff, it could be heat.  You might vacuum it out if
you get a chance.  That machine is reaching the age when fans start dying.
My machine was acting REALLY strange, despite all the fans moving.  Once I
dusted it out (including the spider that had taken up nest) it worked great.
There is also a classic tale of the company janitor who would plug his floor
polisher into the UPSs...

> > I suspect that the problem might be caused by a sleep setting active in
the
> > BIOS, but I can't get in to find out, because the Compaq boot sequence
is
>
> What model is it? Maybe you use a different key to enter the BIOS. If you
> reply with the model number odds are good that someone on the list will
have
> one and can confirm/deny using F10.

I can't confirm/deny (I recall CTRL-ESC somehow), but I usually rely on
mashing enough keys to cause a keyboard error.  Escape or tab will often
clear the boot logo, so you can SEE the message telling you what key to
press.  For what it is worth, DEL and F1 and F2 are also BIOS possibilities.

> > grounds, I've tried giving it an hourly cron job to keep it busy
(ping -c 5
> > yahoo.com > /root/junk.txt), but it seems not to help at all.  My next
> > approach will be to simply shut down before I go home,
> A better approach would be to part it out and get a better system. You
could
> buy an equivilent system for <$100.

Uh oh.  Dem's fightin' words. Maybe not fighting, but it should be said that
"your computer sucks" isn't a good thing to tell someone you are trying to
convince to use Linux
That said, I think Compaq's are junk, too.  But if I had one laying around,
I'd still try to install Linux on it. A 'free' machine is cheaper than the
$100 needed to buy a better one.

So anyway, dust it out, and turn off all power managment on it, and tell us
how it works!