[ale] final plea for help (more kernel panic info)

[J.M. Taylor]

It's not just fsck, it's pretty much anything I try to do. I can run at
the console for awhile (10 - 30 minutes) but if I try to do much of
anything, it gives me a cannot handle null pointer, a kernel oops, and a
long list of things that don't make much sense to me.

I don't think it's a hard drive or IDE controller thing, my gut feeling is
that it's memory or CPU.  I say this b/c I can do normal disk IO and
everything is OK (and fsck, when I can get it to run, says my hdds are
fine. they've been fine for two years, i would be very startled if they
both suddenly went bad). But if I try to do anything that utilises system
resources: cp -r, mv, untar a large archive, I get kernel panics. The "EIP
is at so-and-so" messages have varied widely throughout the night, I would
think if it was an IDE controller it would complain about that every
single time.

I'm trying to update my kernel, but I can't build a new one (can't untar
the archive, or copy an untarr'd archive from much of anywhere) and I
can't even update with an RPM (kernel panic).

How, at this point, can I diagnose whether it's hardware or software? Any
help, feedback, or assistance in understanding what I'm looking at when
the kernel panics and spits out two screens of long numbers will be
welcomed gratefully.

thanks
jenn,
tired and dejected


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