[lug] Flakey Hardware?

[Stephen Queen]

On 2/10/06, John Hernandez <John.Hernandez at noaa.gov> wrote:
> I would be inclined to try a different OS before concluding it's faulty
> hardware.  Can you, for example, install and boot a BSD variant?  I
> won't even mention the other logical choice for a test OS.  If those
> work fine, it may then be advisable to try a different Linux distribution.
>
> If other OS's fail similarly, running memtest86 from a bootable CD might
> be a logical next step.
>
> Lee Woodworth wrote:
> > Steve Sullivan <Steve Sullivan wrote:
> >> Hi,
> >>
> >> I recently bought a dual opteron system, with a Tyan motherboard
> > I recall reading that there were issues with the BIOS and/or SATA
> > chipset on some amd64 motherboards about a year ago (gentoo amd64
> > topics in the support forums). You may want to do research on the
> > issue.
> >> and SATA drives from monarchCompter.com.
> >> It wouldn't boot, so after many many attempts to contact
> >> their tech support, by phone and by email, I finally got
> >> an RMA and sent it back.

Did Monarch sell this system as being Linux compatible? If they did,
maybe the kernel you are loading needs a driver installed that is not
being installed. Try booting a  cd distribution such as Knoppix. If it
does boot, do an lsmod and see which modules have been loaded. Try a
command like
lsmod | grep scsi
or
lsmod | grep sata
.

Then maybe add the modules you think are missing to your
/etc/modules
file. At least that would be where you would add them if you were
using debian. If suse doesn't use /etc/modules (not etc/modules.conf)
it probably has some sort of similar mechanism. That is, a mechanism
that adds modules to load at boot time.

Hope that helps,
Stephen Queen