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Grex > Helpers > #48: System Problems Item. Please attempt to rhyme where possible. |  |
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Message |
| 25 new of 231 responses total. |
headdoc
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response 200 of 231:
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Dec 17 12:31 UTC 1996 |
Thank you popcorn and ajax. A call to our computer literate daughter resulted
in her confusion. But when Jerry turned off the cd rom, we were able to log
onto grex. I will send Jerry ajax's suggestion, and then Lauren suggested
he call a Mac helper to try step 2. If all fails, I will send out the
HELP flag to you, Valerie. Since he got the cd version opf Quicken, I have
been lucky, Jerry let me get on the computer once. He is mezmerized.
I am annoyed at how few cd rom disks there are for MacIntoish that I would
be interested in. We scoured Best Buy Saturday and all we could come up with
was the advanced version of Quicken.
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popcorn
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response 201 of 231:
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Dec 17 14:44 UTC 1996 |
I wrote a script that will "kill getties"
once an hour, under the trees. <----(lame attempt to rhyme in a short time)
This should help some
with the modem that's being a bum.
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kerouac
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response 202 of 231:
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Dec 17 16:34 UTC 1996 |
#196...always nice when staff members make housecalls
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rcurl
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response 203 of 231:
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Dec 17 16:35 UTC 1996 |
Re #200: did you mean "turned off the CD-ROM"? I didn't know that was possible
unless it was external, and then you have to disconnect it totally. I can't
even boot if an attached SCSI device is off, and if I turn one off after
booting, my computer is very unhappy (though I have not tested to see
what might not work, there is a great slowdown).
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popcorn
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response 204 of 231:
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Dec 17 21:33 UTC 1996 |
Sigh... One of the modems is still ringing open.
I guess my script didn't fix what was broken.
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popcorn
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response 205 of 231:
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Dec 17 22:47 UTC 1996 |
I'm at the Pumpkin, having recently un-stuck Grex, which had been hung.
While I'm here, I took ttyh7 off-line. We've had very few logins on ttyh7
in the last few days, so it's likely to be the modem that is failing.
Surprise: It's one of the newer GVC modems and not one of Grex's original
Supra modems, which usually take the blame for everything from bad connections
to the political situation in Afghanistan.
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popcorn
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response 206 of 231:
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Dec 17 23:19 UTC 1996 |
Correction, ttyh7 *is* a Supra. I was going by the "!phones" command, which
said ttyh7 was a GVC. I'll go update the !phones command.
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ajax
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response 207 of 231:
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Dec 18 00:10 UTC 1996 |
Re 203, you can leave unpowered SCSI devices connected without
problem on some setups. I do it regularly with my Mac.
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rcurl
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response 208 of 231:
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Dec 18 05:10 UTC 1996 |
What's the difference between your setup and my setup? The particular
instance I tested for #203 is a PowerBook running 7.0.1 with a CD-ROM
and scanner daisy-chained on the SCSI.
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ajax
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response 209 of 231:
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Dec 18 08:17 UTC 1996 |
I've never figured out why some system/peripheral combinations
need the peripherals to be on. Some do, some don't. If you're
really curious, bring your PowerBook over, and we can test
various combinations of Macs and peripherals :-).
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n8nxf
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response 210 of 231:
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Dec 18 15:05 UTC 1996 |
SCSI chains are activly terminated. Active SCSI lines are terminated
by a voltage divider on either end of the chain. One end of the voltage
divider goes to +5v and the other end to GND. If one of these terminators
does not get power it is possible for it to drag down the whole chain.
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rcurl
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response 211 of 231:
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Dec 18 17:27 UTC 1996 |
Are you saying Rob's setup has power to a terminator even though the device
is off? [Thanks for the offer Rob, but I'll just turn on those devices....]
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headdoc
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response 212 of 231:
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Dec 18 18:58 UTC 1996 |
Okay you all, the helpful folks at MacIntosh informed Jerry that he must take
the cd disk out of the disk drive (yep, it is external) before he shuts off
the system. If he leaves the disk in when he restarts, something gets screwed
up and we can't get into Grex. So simple, but only when you know how.
Meanwhile, we were told to keep the cd rom external organ (what do you call
it) hooked to the computer so it goes on when the computer goes on and we dont
have to turn it off and on separately. Many thanks to Valerie and Ajax for
the offers of help. They make this such a user friendly place. Rane, what
is a SCSI?
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jor
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response 213 of 231:
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Dec 18 21:26 UTC 1996 |
Small Computer Systems Interface? I think it's a type of buss/network
standard linking the parts of your machine together.
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rcurl
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response 214 of 231:
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Dec 19 01:11 UTC 1996 |
What jor said....also, if you leave the SCSI device connected and it powers
on with the computer, there are circumstances where there can be a problem
because the SCSI device did not come up *before* ROM boots the computer. I
had this problem off and on with an SE with an external SCSI HD on which
the System resided. Audrey, the CD-ROM external is called a *drive* (because
it drives CD-ROMS).
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kewy
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response 215 of 231:
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Dec 19 19:49 UTC 1996 |
did grex just go up from being off since last night? or was it just down last
night and a little bit this afternoon? just wondering..
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scott
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response 216 of 231:
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Dec 19 20:00 UTC 1996 |
It's a bouncy Grex,
the hardware is hexed.
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popcorn
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response 217 of 231:
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Dec 19 21:03 UTC 1996 |
(In other words, yes, it's been going down a lot lately.)
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rcurl
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response 218 of 231:
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Dec 20 07:48 UTC 1996 |
Having Grex shutting down late at night to handle mail is a real pain. This
is when I like to conference. Isn't there some way to ration mail use so the
load does not require shutting the system down for conferencing for such
a large fraction of the day (i.e., up to 10% or more)? How about rationing
it so no shutdowns at all are required?
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ajax
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response 219 of 231:
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Dec 20 09:07 UTC 1996 |
Yes, there are a nearly infinite number of ways to ration mail use.
Which way you want to use is a good topic for a co-op item. Previous
versions of co-op discussed this, such as the last coop's item 136,
"Should we Restrict E-mail on Grex?" (Join coop8 to read that one).
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robh
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response 220 of 231:
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Dec 20 10:19 UTC 1996 |
Re 218/219 - The "shutdown for mail processing" was mainly due to
today's crash - generally when we're down for more than an hour or
two, we have to turn off logins to allow mail through our tiny
Internet connection without overloading everything. Obviously there
would be less need for this if there were mail rationing, but this
wasn't a pre-planned event, and doesn't happen on a regular basis.
(Except when we're crashing on a regular basis. >8(
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rcurl
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response 221 of 231:
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Dec 20 15:28 UTC 1996 |
(...like this week... B^{).
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kerouac
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response 222 of 231:
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Dec 20 19:15 UTC 1996 |
whewn grex is down for mail processing, httpd is usually left up, so
if you have web access, you can conf through backtalk at thay time
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kaplan
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response 223 of 231:
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Dec 20 20:46 UTC 1996 |
Re 222, that statement is true for selfish users.
Other people should realize that when grex is down for mail processing,
the more Internet bandwidth and CPU time that can be devoted to mail
processing, the better.
Every CPU cycle that is used by the httpd delays the mail catch up and in
turn delays logins being turned on. If a staffer is watching the mail
queue to decide when to turn logins back on, that staffer's time is being
wasted as well.
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robh
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response 224 of 231:
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Dec 20 20:53 UTC 1996 |
(And hopefully there will always be a staffer keeping an eye
on the system when nologin is turned on.)
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