[rescue] Catatonia in the SGI Indigo2

[Sheldon T. Hall]

David L Kindred (Dave) writes
> >>>>> "Sheldon" == Sheldon T Hall <shel at cmhcsys.com> writes:
>
>     Sheldon> It hasn't done this while running Distributed Folding hour
>     Sheldon> after hour, ...
>
> I'm suspecting that is lots of CPU but little disk activity?

Correct-oh.  It updates its status and log files occasionally, but that's
only a few bytes every few minutes.

The FTP and SMB file transfers that failed involve lots of disk activity,
but burning a CD (on an external drive) from WAV files (on an internal
drive) doesn't involve all that much.

>     Sheldon> ... but it did it several times while accepting SMB file
>     Sheldon> transfers and FTP file transfers. ...
>
>     Sheldon> ...  Just now, it crapped out while I was watching it burn
>     Sheldon> a CD from some WAV files on the internal drive.
>
> Based on this, I'd suspect the power supply.  It's hanging on the edge
> most of the time, but when the load peaks it just can't handle it.

Do you know of any way I can test that?  I can put a voltmeter on the
various power leads, I suppose, though I'd be hard-pressed to see a sudden
and transitory dip in the voltage that way.

> Of course if the dust issue brought by others is the case, then the
> additional thermal load of the increased drive activity could be at
> fault.  Do these machines have a thermal cut-out mechanism?  Double
> check that all of the fans are running all of the time.

My Challenge L has a neat-o "system controller" that controls the fan speed
(and the fan is _huge_), software that will report the system's temperature,
and a thermal cut-out that will gracefull shut the system down.  AFAIK,
however, the I^2 has none of the above.  Certainly, it's not shutting down,
gracefully or otherwise.  It's just hanging.  I suppose the front-panel
pilot light's changing from green to yellow means something, but I haven't
been able to establish what.

-Shel