[ale] Strange System problem

[roncordell at attbi.com]

I need some insight on a problem I have with one of my Linux boxes.

System configuration: Abit BE6 II m/b PIII 800MHz/512Kb cache 768MB RAM
Storage configuration: Adaptec 2940U2W SCSI card with 3 SCSI Ultra2 LVD drives 
on one physical connection, and tape drives, DVD drive, and CD RW on another 
physical connection. There are no IDE drives in the system, although there is 
an onboard HPT366 IDE controller.

OS: SuSE 7.3/8.1/8.2 - all about the same behavior

There are various symptoms, which I will describe here. I think that they are 
all related, but there is nothing overt, nothing that gives errors 
in /var/log/messages, etc.

1. Large files never seem to work correctly. For example, if I download an ISO 
image onto this machine, it always fails the MD5 check. If I download the ISO 
on another machine, it passes the MD5 check on that machine; if I move it to 
this machine, it will fail the MD5 check (regardless of how I move the file, 
either by network, by tape, or whatever).

2. I can't seem to get an Oracle test instance to work correctly with large 
database files, while this works fine on other Linux systems. For example, it 
seems that once I get to somewhere between 1-2GB database file, it starts 
failing. I am unable to import a dump file from another system if the dump file 
is larger than 1.5 GB or so; again this works fine on other comparable Linux 
ssytems.

3. RedHat CD's (8.0 or 9) won't pass the check test on this machine, but they 
will pass on other machines. On the other hand, other CD's seem to work fine 
AFAICT. This doesn't seem to be related to what type of CD it is, either.

4. The ATI TVWonder card used to work under Linux, but now I can't get it to 
produce a picture, only sound. It worked under SuSE 7.1, but now doesn't work 
under any flavor I have used. What has changed? Probably the machine's hardware 
configuration.

Now - the machine's hardware config *has* changed over time, specifically the 
SCSI card(s) used in the system. I suspect that there is something funky going 
on with respect to the 2940U2W card, but it has the latest BIOS updates, etc. 
Like I said, I don't get errors in the logs. Unfortunately, I don't have 
another card I can try, such as an Adaptec 29160 controller. The ATI TVWonder 
card situation makes me suspect that perhaps there is a PCI bus issue involved, 
or an interrupt issue.

Does anyone have any insight/experience that might shed some light, or perhaps 
some things to try? Perhaps a better SCSI card (I've heard that Adaptec cards 
are not the best, but what else would you suggest that doesn't cost a bundle?) 
Perhaps a different configuration on the SCSI card?

Thanks all!

-ronc
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