[NBLUG/talk] Machine Check Exception?

Lincoln Peters sampln at sbcglobal.net
Fri Jun 25 16:22:22 PDT 2004


On Fri, 2004-06-25 at 11:30, Mansur, Warren wrote: 
> > whenever I try to write to a floppy disk, but
> > that now seem to occur at random.  Some kind of machine check 
> > exception
> > 
> > Kernel Panic: CPU 0 context corrupt
> >
> > What could be causing this kind of error?  Do I need a new CPU?  A new
> > motherboard?  Water-cooling?
> 
> Since it only occurs while writing to your floppy disk, it may indicate a problem with either the floppy drive or the floppy controller. It is unlikely to be a CPU problem, because a CPU problem is so fundamental that the system likely wouldn't boot or would behave erratically, and not just when writing to the floppy.

What I meant was that I first observed the problem when writing to
floppy disks.  Since then the problem has occurred in other situations.

I've done some Googling since posting this message, and observed that
some people have had similar problems, usually when the system is under
a high load.  This sometimes results from an overheated component, which
is a possibility considering the hot weather and the relatively poor
ventilation of the room that the computer was in.  Sometimes this is
also caused by bad RAM, but I've been able to test the RAM and I can't
find any problems.

> A good thing to try in a situation like this is simple trial and error. The most likely culprits are the floppy drive or floppy controller. If you have other PCs then you should be able to switch out the floppy from another PC and re-try writing to the floppy. If the error is gone then it's the floppy drive, and simply buy a new floppy drive (they're cheap). If the error persists, the next thing to try is the floppy controller.

I can try switching the floppy drive.  I'll see how that works.

>  Unfortunately it is attached to the motherboard and so you have two options:
> 
> - put in a new motherboard

With the same CPU?  I'd have to buy a new motherboard; that's why I
wanted to find another way to isolate the problem.

> - buy a card with a floppy controller on it and re-try writing to the floppy
> 
> With a quick search on google, I could only find ISA cards that act as floppy controllers. There may be a PCI card out there as well but I didn't see one right off the bat.

I've never seen such a PCI card either.  And this computer has no ISA
slots; just PCI slots, an AGP slot, and a CNR slot (never figured out
what *that* was for).

> Hopefully by then you'll have identified the component. And if not you'll at least have weeded out 2 possibilities.
> 
> It could possibly be something else on the motherboard such as the interrupt controller and that would only be fixed by switching motherboards.

That's what I'm afraid of, that I'll have to replace an expensive
component.  However, if I have to replace a component, there's no
escape.

-- 
Lincoln Peters <sampln at sbcglobal.net>





More information about the talk mailing list