Greetings.  One of the profs here has got a Dell Optiplex 620 running SL
4.4.  It has an Intel Pentium D chip that is dual-core-capable, and it
has the capability enabled.

From time to time the owner has had problems with the system hanging.
He usually solves the problem with some stupid computer trick, such as
cycling the power, etc.  But yesterday he had one of the usual hangs,
except that it was one from which he could not recover.

The problem is very similar to one that was reported on the SL-users
list not too long ago.  In more detail, the system either has a kernel
panic during the boot sequence, or it boots all the way and allows a
login, but almost immediately has a "hard freeze" that requires a power
cycle to thaw.

We've run the Dell diagnostic utilities to test processor, memory, and
video, but we didn't find any problems.

The system is running the latest kernel,  but it will not boot reliably
with any of the four SMP kernels currently installed on it.

We've tried all of the voodoo that I saw mentioned in the previous
discussion (run-level 3, no "rhgb quiet" on the command line), but the
only thing that seems to work reliably is to boot with the uni-processor
kernel.

This is probably an acceptable work-around for the time being, and my
hope is that when we do a fresh install with SL 5, we'll all be happy
again.  But I wonder if any of y'all can provide any further insight
into this.

Thanks.

					- Mike
--
Michael Hannon            mailto:[log in to unmask]
Dept. of Physics          530.752.4966
University of California  530.752.4717 FAX
Davis, CA 95616-8677