Strange Problems with Interactive

[Robert Innes]

Hello fellow netters

	We have a real frustrating problem here, annoying is more like it.

	We purchased a brand new i486 system and proceded to install UNIX on
it. The setup is as follows:

	i486 33 Mhz Clone with Award BIOS
	8 meg of memory
	AHA-1542B SCSI adapter			/* standard config */
	MAXTOR XT-4380S	Drive
		10 meg DOS partition first, not active
		308 meg UNIX partition Active

	Sigma Legend VGA card with 1 meg

	UNIX version:
	Interactive Release 3.2 version 2.0.1 	/* I know it's old, but ... */
	
	We had some problem booting UNIX after installing the video board but
twiddled with the non-cachable mapping in the BIOS and it seemed to come up
with NO REAL problem.  The system ran very well for a few weeks, it crashed
once but rebooted with no problems.  I was playing with the thing one day
and it locked up on me.  I pushed the big red button and waited patiently.
It came up to the number of virtual terminals and paniced.  Dumped a 
kernal trap number, BTW any one have a list of those, and tried to dump memory.

	This has been going on for several day's and I am frustrated.  The
system panics, double panics, reboots itself or just dies after booting UNIX.
Now the wierd part,  after sitting for a few hours it will boot UNIX and start
fsck then panics and goes out to lunch. But not all the time.  It will just
die other times.

	We have tried the boot disk and the same thing happens but sometimes
it boots UNIX. Then try a mount or fsck and bye bye.  ARRRRRGGGHH!

	The UNIX we have has worked pretty flawlessly under a 386, going on 2
years now, and we are pleased with it.  Yea, I'm sucking up to the Interactive
guys on the net :-).  But I cannot figure out what the problem is here. 

	What is the cause, Video, SCSI, harddisk, phase of the moon, or
 none of the above?

	The thing works under DOS, but who cares.  I will say that if
we didn't have the DOS partition we would not be able to run the SCSI 
utils, which of course said nothing was wrong.

	Please reply EMAIL if possible.

Bob
----
Robert Innes                     |  Extnet:  rinnes at ndsuext.nodak.edu
NDSU Extension Service           |  BITNET:  nu172300 at ndsuvm1.BITNET
North Dakota State University    |  Internet:innes at plains.NoDak.edu
-- 
Robert Innes                     |  Extnet:  rinnes at ndsuext.nodak.edu
NDSU Extension Service           |  BITNET:  nu172300 at ndsuvm1.BITNET
North Dakota State University    |  Internet:innes at plains.NoDak.edu