Freezing Novell 4.1 HELP

Your problem unfortunately is not likely from Novell, but the end of a piece of hardware. It's unlikely this hardware is under warranty or maintenance, but it sounds like your system board may be failing. You can try reseating all the cards in the server, but it is unlikely to resolve it. You are looking at new hardware even for the troubleshooting phase. If you are looking at new hardware, you may need to upgrade OS, as a lot of new hardware does not have 4.1 drivers available.

The following is from Novell on the NMI abends:

By definition a "non-maskable" error means that the error cannot be "masked out" by software. This is a hardware generated error which comes from the CPU. It is caused by faulty hardware and/or noisy power.
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Fix
If the error specifies the "SYSTEM" start by trouble-shooting the system board. Alternately if it specifies I/O, start with the I/O devices. The error may not always say system or I/O. If there is something like Compaqs Insight Manager running the error may differ somewhat but will still report the NMI. Most often the cause is memory but it can be ANY piece of hardware including the internal power supply. H/W diagnostics are useful but DO NOT always detect the faulty component. Sometimes you simply have to swap hardware to determine the cause. If you have the luxury of another machine and are in a production situation where you cannot afford to be down for any length of time , it may be best to put the server up on another machine, Check the incoming power, then trouble-shoot the problem off-line. It is also recommend to check your hardware configuration and drivers up-front.

Sounds very much like a hardware problem to me too. Try swapping the hardware - make sure the memory is 100% compliant, try getting away with less memory if you have to in order to prove a point, then try another system board. Why are you using a dual processor machine for file and print anyway ? Novell does not use any extra processing power does it? (Groupwise apart)

Definitely Hardware. 1 of your processors or slots is going bad.

Step1, disable smp, pull the second processor, and use the terminator ( hope you still have it around :- )

If the machine still freezes, swap processors, using the one you pulled.

If it still freezes, you MAY be able to swap the processor and terminator, but not many boards allow either slot to be the primary.

At this point, you'll be best served to buy a replacement motherboard. No need to go dual, as a single pentium III Xeon 700 or so will give you a significant increase from what you have.

Good luck

similer situation that I got before,

I solve the problem with

1. upgrading the Bios,
2. took off all components include display card, memory, all things that connect to motherboard,
3. get all together again.

Good luck

similer situation that I got before,

I solve the problem with

1. upgrading the Bios,
2. took off all components include display card, memory, all things that connect to motherboard,
3. get all together again.

Good luck

This question was closed by the author