Instability, Crashes and Segfaults !!!

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27 May 2017 09:11 #93698 by cptX
Hi to all in this nice community! This is my first post here!

From the first moment of installing LinuxCNC 2.7.8 it keeps crashing all the time reporting segfaults, for example:
/usr/bin/linuxcnc: line 857: 4603 Segmentation fault $EMCDISPLAY -ini "$INIFILE" $EMCDISPLAYARGS $EXTRA_ARGS

Almost everytime I run LinuxCNC it will crash after some time...
Very frustrating if you consider that I'm cutting something with my CNC when the crash happens...

The system is a Pentium 4 3GHz (disabled Hyperthreading) with 2GB RAM, 80GB Hard Disk and Matrox G550 graphics card.

I have started now checking the RAM with Memtest and the disk for badblocks...

Also in the messages log of the system looks like python could be responsible but in that file too I see other reasons too, so I'm not sure.
Somewhere in Internet I read that the graphics card could be the problem (is $EMCDISPLAY in the errors suggests this?) but cannot verify this!
Attached you can find 3 different crash logs from LinuxCNC and the message log of the system with several segfaults in it.

Please if you have any idea what to check please suggest!
Attachments:

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27 May 2017 10:47 #93701 by tommylight
Do you have another computer that you can test on, or another graphic card?
Also, edit the ini file to use a different gui, there are several, or use the sim ones that come with linuxcnc, so there is no need for editing.

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27 May 2017 11:55 #93704 by Todd Zuercher
Unfortunately a lot of P4s are from the era of crappy time bomb capacitors. Pop open the PCs cover and look carefully at all of the electrolytic caps looking for ones with burst or bulging tops.

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27 May 2017 21:42 #93717 by cptX
Guys, thanks for the replies, I'm lucky and unlucky!!
Lucky because I found the problem. Memtest proved one of my RAM modules problematic.
Unlucky because the PC will now run with 1GB RAM. I tested it and is rock solid now plus looks like never needs more than 1 GB RAM... What you think, would 1GB RAM be enough for large gcode files in linuxcnc?

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27 May 2017 22:07 #93719 by tommylight
Most of the time you will not need more than 1GB, Large gcode files are not a problem for ram, on some cases there is some other problem with large gcodes and screen refresh rates.
Also, use Lubuntu 16.04 it is much snappier and more enjoyable to use with low memory.

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28 May 2017 03:00 #93739 by Todd Zuercher
I have a couple of machines that have been running Linuxcnc for a very long time (more than 5 years) on only 1gig ram. It is generally adequate.

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28 May 2017 06:03 #93741 by cptX
Actually I realized in linux you can find with Memtest86 the bad RAM blocks and exlude them from the kernel by defining them in grub!!!
Crazy linux magic!! I'm now searching for these bad blocks and I'll try this in the next days!
This is amazing news as you don't have to throw the bad RAM away any more!!!

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28 May 2017 11:52 #93747 by tommylight
I would not recomend using it, soner or later anothe block will fail, usualy when the machine is doing something very expencive (murphy's law) and you end up regreting the choices you made in you youth...........nevermind ! :)
Just do not use it.
Regards,
Tom

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28 May 2017 15:16 #93750 by cptX
I tried it and until now looks stable!
You are right that I should minimize the risk, but as the bad memory blocks is a statistical issue, it may prove that never fails again. I need the extra 1GB RAM as I'm going to use also inkscape in this computer and sometimes I use the browser...
If I see that statistically fails again very often of course I will remove it completely... For the time being I was very happily suprised to learn that there was this possibility in linux!

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29 May 2017 14:24 #93793 by cptX
Well although the crashes are reduced significantly I'm still receiving segfaults...
I found the bad memory areas and passed them to the kernel through grub but still sometimes I receive segmentation faults...
I think that tommylight was right, it is better to throw away this faulty RAM.

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