Problems with Linux Red Hat 7.3

I work at Arizona State University and we're having awful trouble
installing Red Hat Linux 7.3 in one of our Dell computers for research.
We run a MonteCarlo simulation based on GEANT3, and this only works on
RHL 7.3 for unknown reasons.

We have two other Dell computers that are slightly older (but they are
pretty much the same thing) and 7.3 works just fine.

The computer is brand new, just straight from the box, with the
following specs:

Dual 3.4 GHz processors, XEON IRWINDALE
MOTHERBOARD, XEON PAXVILLE
Dual in-line memory module, total of 4GB

Basically, the installation runs flawlessly, but when the computer
boots and Linux starts (where the system is putting all this green
"OK"), the system gives an error:

CPU 0: Machine check exception
Kernel Panic
In idle task: Not syncing

Can anybody tell me if they've had trouble with this before, and if so,
how to solve it? Our research is pretty much stopped until we solve
this problem.

Thank you.

"Carlos Hernandez" <charly@gmail.com> writes:[color=blue]
>I work at Arizona State University and we're having awful trouble
>installing Red Hat Linux 7.3 in one of our Dell computers for research.
>We run a MonteCarlo simulation based on GEANT3, and this only works on
>RHL 7.3 for unknown reasons.
>
>We have two other Dell computers that are slightly older (but they are
>pretty much the same thing) and 7.3 works just fine.
>
>The computer is brand new, just straight from the box, with the
>following specs:
>
>Dual 3.4 GHz processors, XEON IRWINDALE
>MOTHERBOARD, XEON PAXVILLE
>Dual in-line memory module, total of 4GB
>
>Basically, the installation runs flawlessly, but when the computer
>boots and Linux starts (where the system is putting all this green
>"OK"), the system gives an error:
>
>CPU 0: Machine check exception
>Kernel Panic
>In idle task: Not syncing
>
>Can anybody tell me if they've had trouble with this before, and if so,
>how to solve it? Our research is pretty much stopped until we solve
>this problem.[/color]

Try swapping out the DIMM's. The most likely cause of a MCE is
an uncorrected multibit memory error, or if you're not using ECC
memory, a single-bit uncorrected memory error.

scott

On Mon, 03 Apr 2006 15:18:35 -0700, Carlos Hernandez wrote:
[color=blue]
> I work at Arizona State University and we're having awful trouble
> installing Red Hat Linux 7.3 in one of our Dell computers for research. We
> run a MonteCarlo simulation based on GEANT3, and this only works on RHL
> 7.3 for unknown reasons.
>
> We have two other Dell computers that are slightly older (but they are
> pretty much the same thing) and 7.3 works just fine.
>
> The computer is brand new, just straight from the box, with the following
> specs:
>
> Dual 3.4 GHz processors, XEON IRWINDALE MOTHERBOARD, XEON PAXVILLE
> Dual in-line memory module, total of 4GB
>
> Basically, the installation runs flawlessly, but when the computer boots
> and Linux starts (where the system is putting all this green "OK"), the
> system gives an error:
>
> CPU 0: Machine check exception
> Kernel Panic
> In idle task: Not syncing
>
> Can anybody tell me if they've had trouble with this before, and if so,
> how to solve it? Our research is pretty much stopped until we solve this
> problem.
>
> Thank you.[/color]

Have you tried booting with a non-SMP kernel? If that works the you might
try compiling a recent 2.4 kernel. RH7 is an antique, it's not surprising
that it's kernel can't handle a modern system.

On another note, have you tried to run your simulation on something more
recent? There are compatibility libraries that come with modern RH
distributions like Fedora Core and RHEL (or the CentOS clones) that should
make it possible to run a RH7 application on a modern OS. If you can't get
it run a the most recent distros like FC4, FC5 or RHEL 4, you might want
to try RHEL 3. It's a 2.4 based distro so it's a closer relative of RH7.3
then the current versions. RHEL 3 is still supported so it should be able
to run on a new machine.