From Bugzilla Helper: User-Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.01; Windows NT 5.0) Description of problem: System freezes (no keyboard response, no mouse response, no response to ping) randomly, but usually during network activity. First happened during up2date run after initial installation. Repeated reformats and reinstallations have eliminated Promise IDE cards or ampd as cause. Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): Kernel 2.4.18-3 How reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: 1.Reformat HDD 2.Install RH 7.3 3.Run up2date or Netscape, or, leave idle and wait (max 36 hours). Actual Results: No response to keyboard, no response to mouse. Samba shares unavailable. No response to ping requests. Reboots happily after power cycle and integrity check, but freezes again soon after. System is unusable. Expected Results: A system that runs for months, unattended. Additional info: There appear to be no error reports anywhere. I attach a couple of sysreport outputs.
Created attachment 70484 [details] Output from sysreport command
Fixed by installing kernel-2.4.18-10 update as advised in RHSA-2002:158-09 - "race in the dcache"
Installing kernel-2.4.18-10 appeared to fix the problem on Friday, and I was able to complete all updates. Now I find that the system froze again at midday on Saturday while running the default screensavers.
System also freezes at init level 3.
At the suggestion of RedHat support, I have changed the NIC driver from eepro100 to e100. The system has now run for seven days without problems.
*** Bug 748158 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***