3.51a keeps dying; even HDB is a mess; any ideas out there?

[Ken Brassler]

In article <422 at kosman.UUCP> kevin at kosman.UUCP (Kevin O'Gorman) writes:
>I have been having bad results lately, and don't quite know what to blame
>it on.
>I am distressed because my machine keeps freezing on me.  It seems pretty
>clearly related to uucp traffic.
>It was just at the end of an
>incoming uucp call (my unix-pc feed, to be exact), and it left something
>for cunbatch in /lost+found.

My machine has run continuously and flawlessly for 2 1/2 years. A
few weeks ago a had my first kernel panic, due to a kernel parity
error. I used the reset button to recover.

Later that same day, my machine crashed (froze, locked-up, etc.)
twice while receiving news. The second time, I was using 'rn' at the
same time, and after reset, I found that my .newsrc file now
contained the text of a news article.

Since both crashes occurred while uucico was running, I surmised
that the disk image of uucico had probably been partially
overwritten with garbage during the first kernel panic. I reloaded
new copies of all the uucp executables, uucico, uux, uuxqt, and uucp
from my archives, and the problem immediately disappeared.

Personally, I think that kernel crashes are due to a dram address,
where the kernel is loaded, missing a refresh cycle, or being hit by
a cosmic ray (not completely a joke). If no damage was done to the
files on the hard disk during the crash, you can get by with a
reset. If crashes increase in frequency, I think it's time to
reformat and reload the hard disk.
-- 

Ken Brassler {ihnp4|qantel|pyramid|lll-crg}!pacbell!maxepr!ken