> I have an old AMD-K6 266 MHz PC with 128 MB of RAM that I upgraded from
> Debian 3.1 to Debian 4.0 by doing the "apt-get dist-upgrade" while on
> the Internet.
>
> It was crashing for a few days, but it isn't the Debian OS because it
> also crashed when using a DSL LiveCD and a Knoppix LiveCD. I thought
> that those tests would eliminate the Debian OS as well as the HDD.
>
> It ran for a week without crashing when running from tomsrtbt on a floppy.
>
> I fired it up again on the Debian 4.0 installed on the HDD and it ran OK
> for a week until I accidentally killed the AC power feed which ended the
> week's uptime. Then I added a UPS and rebooted it.
>
> It has ran for 5 days without failure until a short while ago.
>
> I had a tail -f running on the syslog and just now when I checked it I
> noticed the box was in trouble.
> ...

> John F. Morse wrote:
>

>> I have an old AMD-K6 266 MHz PC with 128 MB of RAM that I upgraded from
>> Debian 3.1 to Debian 4.0 by doing the "apt-get dist-upgrade" while on
>> the Internet.
>>
>> It was crashing for a few days, but it isn't the Debian OS because it
>> also crashed when using a DSL LiveCD and a Knoppix LiveCD. I thought
>> that those tests would eliminate the Debian OS as well as the HDD.
>>
>> It ran for a week without crashing when running from tomsrtbt on a floppy.
>>
>> I fired it up again on the Debian 4.0 installed on the HDD and it ran OK
>> for a week until I accidentally killed the AC power feed which ended the
>> week's uptime. Then I added a UPS and rebooted it.
>>
>> It has ran for 5 days without failure until a short while ago.
>>
>> I had a tail -f running on the syslog and just now when I checked it I ...

> Robert Harris wrote:

>> John F. Morse wrote:
>>

>>> I have an old AMD-K6 266 MHz PC with 128 MB of RAM that I upgraded from
>>> Debian 3.1 to Debian 4.0 by doing the "apt-get dist-upgrade" while on
>>> the Internet.
>>>
>>> It was crashing for a few days, but it isn't the Debian OS because it
>>> also crashed when using a DSL LiveCD and a Knoppix LiveCD. I thought
>>> that those tests would eliminate the Debian OS as well as the HDD.
>>>
>>> It ran for a week without crashing when running from tomsrtbt on a
>>> floppy.
>>>
>>> I fired it up again on the Debian 4.0 installed on the HDD and it ran OK
>>> for a week until I accidentally killed the AC power feed which ended the
>>> week's uptime. Then I added a UPS and rebooted it.
>>>
>>> It has ran for 5 days without failure until a short while ago. ...

> Well, that is in the slab allocator, so it could well be a driver
> problem. Does your kernel include any non-free drivers (e.g. nvidia or a
> Windows wireless driver)?
>
> Robert

> Feverishly pounding upon a keyboard John F. Morse typed:
>
>
>

>> It is an old AMD-K6 266 MHz box with 128 MB RAM. It was running Debian
>> 3.1 until I upgraded it to Etch. I've done the same on several other
>> identical computers with 266 and 233 MHz CPUs, and RAM down as low as 48 MB.
>>
>> I'd rule out the kernel Robert, because it fails with Debian Etch, and
>> from a LiveCD, DSL and Knoppix. ;-)
>>
>> It did tun a full week with tomsrtbt. That, if anything, would lead me
>> to suspect a hard drive issue. Perhaps the floppy-based tomsrtbt and the
>> memtest86 do not look at the hard drive, so they do not fail. The
>> LiveCDs, DSL and Knoppix, run from the CD-ROM drive, but might be
>> occasionally looking at the hard drive.
>>

>
> ...

> If it's the channel, well ... you'll know what to buy ;)
>

> Good plan. FYI, if you're not already aware - I've seen that you *are*
> savvy - a LiveCD doesn't need the HD to be attached to operate. Instead,
> it'll be forced to run in RAM alone. Some, like Ubuntu, don't even make
> a ramdisk and the HD is entirely ignored. This is the _only_ means by
> which I test them as a Sabayon DVD wrote to all user's /home/.mozilla &
> .mozilla-thunderbird directories over writing browser Home pages to
> theirs and all email settings were gone.
>