5000/200 HANGS intermittently. No error messages. ugh. help.

[Van Rauch]

Well, I just caught up on about 130 articles in unix.ultrix
and didn't see any allusion toward the problem we have but
will keep this short and ask for suggestions, no
matter how ambiguous.

We have a DEC System 5000/200 running 4.0. Attempts to run 3.1d
on it were tried first, but one could not build a kernel
under 3.1d. So what the heck,  lets' go with 4.0.

Besides 4.0's innability to function as a YP Server we have a 
very strange problem with our 5000.  About every 3 to 7 days, 
the system will HANG.  No messages on the console, nothing in 
syserr.hostname.# (uerf), no core file in /usr/adm/crash (savecore is 
turned on). - nuthin!

Each reboot is complaint free excepting of course
all the open files that fsck has to deal with.

DEC has since replaced the system board twice, originally
we were running 4.0 of the firmware, now we have
5.3. (When is DEC going to start shipping updated 
Hardware Operator Guides with new rev.s of firmware??).
Console commands are very different.

I do not believe the problem lies in the E'net interface
as when the system hangs the console hangs along with
it. None of our other systems (all running 3.1x) are 
exhibiting any sympathetic behavior.

Suggestions (obvious/ambiguous) on trouble shooting procedures would be 
gratefully accepted. Thanks.

Van Rauch			van at triton.unm.edu
Application/Systems		
University of NM, CIRT