Some senseless babbling from Ivan Todoroski to Donnie Benners
on 27 Nov 98  13:07:00 about TCP/IP...

 DB> I'll grab it and see if it will do what I need. What I see on this
 DB> end is a total lockup. Nothing works, including the mouse pointer.

 IT> The mouse freezes?!? Ouch! I don't think WathcDog can help you
 IT> then... My experience with OS/2 is that as long as the mouse works,
 IT> you know that at least a part of the system still works, especially
 IT> background programs like WatchDog, even if the PM hangs. But if the
 IT> mouse freezes, then either you pulled your mouse cable too hard :) or
 IT> the system is totally, completely and utterly dead. The mouse is one
 IT> of the last things to go...

I used to think that, too.  However, my server machine has a bum hard drive 
that needs to be replaced (when I get around to it), which seems to be the 
cause of infrequent lockups.  At that time, no programs execute, not even 
the TCP/IP stack (can't ping the server from another machine), but the 
mouse cursor moves just dandily.

It's a PS/2 mouse on that one.  Perhaps all the work for the mouse cursor 
is done by something other than the CPU.

 IT> But these deaths are EXTREMELY rare events, infact if it's really an
 IT> OS bug then it would probably turn up as a trap... I would strongly
 IT> suspect your hardware if I were you. Check the cabling of your
 IT> motherboard and hard disks, and maybe you have failing RAM modules
 IT> or something.

If it's a lockup without any error or IPE, it's almost certainly hardware.

And if it's an IPE, then it's either hardware or a device driver.

Mike Ruskai
thanny{at}home.com


... Do you happen to have 6 fingers on your left hand?
--- Renegade v05-11 Exp