A weired system.

[Robin Laing]

pursley1 at netscape.net wrote:
> You know, I don't know what it is but my system just seems to be 
> behaving very strange.  I'm only commenting on this and am not really 
> expecting a response but thought I'd like to share my frustrations.
> 
>    1)  I couldn't synch my Palm via USB cable even though I had all the
>    right software and setting installed and it turned out to be a
>    mystery setting that hardly anyone was having problems with.  - Now
>    fixed.
> 
>    2)  Every now and then, when I print documents, they get sent to the
>    que and then disappear without a trace, or an error for that matter.
> 
>    3)  Even though FC8 seems to install the ability to get an icon when
>    something is in the que, mine never worked and therefor never knew
>    it was suppose to be there.  In fact, absolutely *NONE* of the
>    standard ways of viewing the que from Xwindows worked.  Now, for no
>    reason at all by poking around looking at the info on them and
>    without changing any settings, suddenly it's started working after
>    rebooting.  Go figure!
> 
>    4)  I occasionally have non-Linux partitions unmounting
>    automatically with no error given or manual assistance.
> 
>    5)  ...and other idiotic things that happen occasionally.
> 
> I'm starting to feel the urge to ask the question, "Is Linux stable 
> anymore?"  Since I get the sense that no one else is having these 
> problems and more I wonder if I'm losing my mind....
> 
> Bradley
> 

I just went through the same thoughts after a week of fighting with my 
new computer.  Everything worked like a charm until I added another 4Gig 
ram.  The system kept crashing and left me SMP error messages.

After running memtest (make sure you use the latest) and other tests, I 
finally noticed that the memory wasn't showing up properly in memtest 
and checked the BIOS.  Many changes had occurred and the BIOS was was 
out of date.

Replaced the BIOS on Friday and so far the machine has been very stable.

This is one issue that the IT staff never mentioned to check.



-- 
Robin Laing