[mythtv-users] Disk Report, Is this Still Safe to use? (Was: Muti-Year Installation Major Disk Corruption)

[Douglas Wagner]

On Thu, Feb 5, 2015 at 11:25 AM, Philip Brady <phil.brady at hotmail.co.uk>
wrote:

> i
>
> > Date: Thu, 5 Feb 2015 23:33:46 +1100
> > From: michael at thewatsonfamily.id.au
> > To: mythtv-users at mythtv.org
> > Subject: Re: [mythtv-users] Disk Report, Is this Still Safe to use?
> (Was: Muti-Year Installation Major Disk Corruption)
> >
> > On 5/02/2015 10:16 PM, Jan Ceuleers wrote:
> > > Cabling?
> > >
> > Power Supply, Heat, Full Partition
> >
> inodes?
> Phil
>
>
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>
Wanted to get back to this in case someone else ran across this in the
future and this can help them.

Investigation continues but there's something SERIOUSLY wrong with the old
PC I had my backend in.  I can't track down what it is, but I don't think
it was drive.

Both bad blocks and SMART tests (short and long) came back with no issues
on the drive at all, given this thing is only about 6 - 7 months old, I'm
inclined to believe that there's nothing wrong with the drive...to the
point I did a new build/restore to it.

To touch on a few items:

* Cabling: Unlikely, no frays and nothing has been inside this thing since
I set it up a couple years ago.  I did check all the connections and they
were solid.  I guess there's a possibility of a wire burning out, but I
have my doubts, these cables look in pretty good condition.
* Power Supply: There's a potential culpret, the PS is probably 3+ years
old at this point (maybe more).  Usually when I lose a PS I end up losing
the system (simply "turns off" and won't turn on and/or the whole thing
doesn't boot properly).  There is the possibility that it's just on an edge
where there's only BARELY enough power making it out of the PS to keep the
system alive.  It would explain a few things (see below).
* Heat:  VERY unlikely an issue.  All fans are active and working properly
and this case is a top of the line Antec from a few years ago.  I ran my
main gaming desktop out of this case for the better part of 4 years...if
THAT wasn't going to overheat, this unlikely would.
* Bad Memory:  Here again is a possibility.  I didn't get a chance to run
memtest on it, I may go back and do so just to see what I can figure out.

Reinstall:
----------------------
So I went ahead and started the process of re-installation.  After
determining the HD didn't look like it was at fault, I decided to just use
the old hardware and see what I could do with it.

That's when I ran into the installation errors.  LOTS of installation
errors, across pretty much every version and implementation of Mythbuntu I
could try.

* USB Key Install:  Mythbuntu 14.04 - I must have tried this 10 times in
different iterations.  It'd get through the download/copy of packages and
(I think) start the actual install of them (something about building a list
of packages on the CD?  Whatever the step is in the install after the
"copying packages" part) and the installer would core dump/seg fault on me,
every time.

* CD Install: Mythbuntu 14.04 - Same issue as above.  Also got several
reports from one of the subsystems during the install that it was failing /
dumping all throughout the process before the installer finally crashed on
me.

* USB Key Install:  Mythbuntu 12.04 - Decided to go back to 12.04 and see
if I could make IT install properly..maybe my hardware is too old for 14.04
to work well?  *BUZZZZT* nope, that didn't work either.  Same core
dumps/seg faults in the installation.

I skipped trying to CD install of 12.04 as by this point I was pretty
convinced something was wrong.

Moved everything over to a secondary Linux system (Del Optiplex 740) I
"inherited" from someone a while back and installation went through
flawlessly...first time, no issues.

As if that wasn't enough to point a finger at some other piece of hardware
on the box, I ended up dropping the Dell's drives (I swapped the Myth
backend drives for the Dell drives and visa versa, in essence switching
systems) back into the failed Mythbackend's box and booting it.  System
came up, but is only stable for about an hour or two till I get some kind
of kernel panic with it literally just sitting there.  If I happen to go
into X (actually log in), it happens in about 5  10 minutes of use.

Kernel panic seems to indicate some kind of issue with CPU, I also thought
I saw some kind of error with graphics card.

Given all this, I'm inclined to believe one of a couple things:

* Power Supply:  My Primary suspicion is, given the age of the box, there's
a potential that the PS is just not supplying enough power to the system
anymore...causing all the misfires.
* Motherboard:  My secondary suspicion is that the Motherboard has given up
the ghost.  Given the kernel panics and seg faults I was getting during
installation on this box, I wonder if there's not just something broken
with the MB itself...could account for the CPU and Video Card Errors.

I suppose it COULD be the CPU that's broken, but I've never seen a CPU give
out (It's got a hella good aftermarket cooler on it).  I don't think the
video card is to blame (I can't see where the video card would be the
culpret in all the issues) but maybe I'm not looking at something right.

Anyway it goes, the old Myth box is pretty much ADR (Ain't Doin' Right) and
at the moment, I just don't have a whole lot of need to take that diagnosis
any farther than I already have.

--Doug
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