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[sindi keesan <keesan AT sdf.lonestar.org>]

The cpu fan in the musical computer (where we had replaced the hard drive 
and it started playing Fur Elise) was not moving.  My partner wanted to 
test it somehow (it is the sort that plugs into the motherboard and won't 
run until it gets a signal to do so) but I noticed that you could not even 
move it by pushing it and that the plastic frame was cracked.  The fan 
appears to have been melted by the heat from the uncooled cpu.  The cpu is 
okay.

Out of a box of fans and heat sinks, we found one pair suitable for this 
cpu, plugged everything back together, and transferred one large temp.tgz 
file via ethernet in about 40 seconds.

To receive, I used BL2 RAMdisk after transferring the ethernet module to 
the BL2 directory and then mounted the BL2 DOS directory, and copied from 
that to RAMdisk to the modules directory.  This was about an hour faster 
than using plip.  I could also remake BL2 RAMdisk to include the module.

I noticed a lot of /proc/* files going by, incluing 67M of kcore - what is 
this?  When I do a du on /proc I get 0 for everything, but ls -l in /proc 
lists kcore at 67MB.

I also found a couple of large files in /tmp in an oddly named 
directory, one from lynx, one a binary, that linux appears to have 
generated (perhaps during a crash?) and should probably have  deleted 
those before making temp.tgz.

Instructions for avoiding the crash related to the PCI bridge and its 
07.3 /proc file said to bypass /proc when making temp.tgz.  How would I 
do this next time with tar?  Do I have to list all the directories that I 
do want to include in temp.tgz (/usr /var /home /root /etc etc.) or can I 
somehow specify just what to leave out?    Leaving out kcore would speed 
things up somewhat when compressing the files.   Would it make a smaller 
temp.tgz?

The temp.tgz transfer method was explained by Steven:

On source computer, load Bl2, make temp.tgz:  tar -zcvf * temp.tgz

On target computer, load BL2 ramdisk
Mount target (linux ext2 partition made with fdisk) and cd to it.

Transfer this file (via ethernet is fastest) to other computer using 
Steven's receive/send routine.

After transfer, on target computer:
tar -zxvf temp.tgz

If the source and target directories are not the same /dev (mine are all 
/dev/hd2) change the transferred version to match by editing fstab.

Steven, please correct the above if needed.

On Fri, 3 Sep 2004, sindi keesan wrote:

> Thanks, that was very helpful.  Certain models of DFI ,including ours, from 
> 1997, play Fur Elise as a warning message if:
>
> cpu has problems (bent pin, not seated, etc)
> cpu is overheating due to fan problems (no fan, broken fan...)
> power supply voltage or wattage too low esp if AMD or Cyrix cpus (we have 
> Intel in this computer but AMD and Cyrix in two others and have heard the 
> tune a few times before)
>
> Shortly before the concert started, my partner stuck a hard drive in the 
> computer temporarily (while trying to get the dead one working) and it hit 
> the fan and made noises.  I have asked him to replace the fan.  When I turned 
> on the computer the fan did not go on.
>
> I am told that the hard drive which died had nothing to do with my running 
> SVGALib with the wrong settings, it was dying anyway.  I do recall the CMOS 
> sometimes not finding that drive, previously.  Can linux crashing actually 
> damage a hard drive?
>
> Does anyone know how to fix an NEC monitor that keeps going black for a few 
> seconds?  It was given to us with a different problem (one of the control 
> buttons stuck).  Blacks out for 1/2 to 3 seconds, including just now.  17", 
> 1600 res, and we just gave away the two reliable ones to friends in their 80s 
> who could not see the smaller screens and I need one working one for work. 
> The blanking is getting worse as I leave it on longer (twice while typing 
> this sentence).  Expanding solder joint or bad component?  It is not off more 
> often than on.
>
> On Fri, 3 Sep 2004, Theo Perry wrote:
> > Have a look at
> > http://www.dfiusa.com/support/music.htm
> > which explains the music playing
> >
> > Theo
> >
> >
> >
> > > Does anyone know why the computer where we replaced the hard drive and 
> > > reformatted a new one played Fur Elise endlessly after that until I 
> > > turned it off?  Is there some way to turn off a PC speaker via software? 
> > > It has done this on other occasions.  Perhaps a joke on the part of a 
> > > designer?
> > >
> > > Sindi
> >
> >
> > >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
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>
> keesan AT sdf.lonestar.org
> SDF Public Access UNIX System - http://sdf.lonestar.org
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keesan AT sdf.lonestar.org
SDF Public Access UNIX System - http://sdf.lonestar.org