Re: [PLUG] spontaneous reboots?

[Bill Jonas <bill@billjonas.com>]

On Tue, Jan 22, 2002 at 11:31:02AM -0500, kevin mudrick wrote:
> 1) How do I test the power supply?  Leroy suggested checking the output
> voltage, but what kind of equipment do I need to do that?

Get a voltmeter/multimeter.  You can get an inexpensive one for maybe
$10-20 (if you go really low-end).  Micro Center and Radio Shack are two
places you can purchase them, although I think most electronics stores
would have them.  A quick google search should provide voltage diagrams
for the various power supply connections.  (I don't remember which wires
are supposed to be +5, ground, -5, etc off the top of my head.)

Testing the motherboard power leads themselves might be problematic on
an ATX power supply/motherboard combo, as the power supply needs to be
hooked up to a motherboard that contains a CPU and ram before it will
turn on.  Of course, once it's connected, getting at the leads
themselves would seem to be a little tricky... Perhaps there are a
couple of pins you can short to trick the power supply.  I don't know.

> 2) Checking for overheating.. My case doesn't seem to get very hot, though
> I'd like to check the CPU temperature anyway.. is lm_sensors the way to
> go?  what kind of temperature range should I expect for a duron 800?

lm_sensors is good.  It works on my board (an Iwill KK-266R).  Of
course, your motherboard has to have temperature sensors in order for it
to work.

The CPU shouldn't be more than 50-60 degrees C or so; the system itself
shouldn't be more than above 30-40 degrees C.

> Oooh.. another thing that I've always wondered about... could running
> something like win4lin that needs a win4lin-patched kernel to work, cause
> funky system instability like this?

It's entirely possible.  What you described sounds more like a hardware
problem to me, though a dodgy kernel certainly shouldn't be ruled out
out-of-hand.

-- 
Bill Jonas    *    bill@billjonas.com    *    http://www.billjonas.com/

Developer/SysAdmin for hire!   See http://www.billjonas.com/resume.html

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