Kernel Log filled with zeros

lostgeek · 2009-08-03 18:56:36

Hi,

My Arch just crashed and I looked in my kernel.log and found this:

00000000   20 58 35 2D  64 32 33 65  20 6B 65 72  6E 65 6C 3A  20 77 6C 61  6E 30 3A 20  6E 6F 20 49   X5-d23e kernel: wlan0: no I
0000001C   50 76 36 20  72 6F 75 74  65 72 73 20  70 72 65 73  65 6E 74 0A  00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00  Pv6 routers present.........
00000038   00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00  ............................
00000054   00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00  ............................
[snip]
000002A0   00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00  96 F6 07 00  0C 00 01 02  2E 00 00 00  9E F5 07 00  0C 00 02 02  ............................
000002BC   2E 2E 00 00  BC 21 01 00  10 00 07 01  64 65 70 65  6E 64 73 00  BD 21 01 00  D8 0F 04 01  .....!......depends..!......
000002D8   64 65 73 63  00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00  desc........................
000002F4   00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00  ............................
[snip]
000012B4   9E F5 07 00  0C 00 02 02  2E 2E 00 00  F5 7D 01 00  10 00 07 01  64 65 70 65  6E 64 73 00  .............}......depends.
000012D0   F6 7D 01 00  D8 0F 04 01  64 65 73 63  00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00  .}......desc................
[and so on...]

Any ideas on what could've caused that?

ataraxia · 2009-08-03 22:11:47

Possibly you had some memory corruption, causing the pointer to the kernel's log ring buffer to point to some binary data instead. I'd do some RAM testing.

lostgeek · 2009-08-04 12:12:55

ataraxia wrote:

Possibly you had some memory corruption, causing the pointer to the kernel's log ring buffer to point to some binary data instead. I'd do some RAM testing.

Memtest86+ ran for nearly seven hours and passed six tests with no errors.
Other ideas?

Also my machine has been crashing quite a lot over the last weeks, without leaving any signs in the logs (or maybe I overlooked it. My linux knowledge is not that good).

R00KIE · 2009-08-04 13:44:45

I would look into one of the few components that no one ever thinks of: the power supply.

lostgeek · 2009-08-04 13:49:05

R00KIE wrote:

I would look into one of the few components that no one ever thinks of: the power supply.

It was plugged in and fully loaded.

lostgeek · 2009-08-06 08:17:06

Two new things:

1) I got some 0x00 in my ~/.zsh_history too.
2) While un- and reloading my wlan driver (broadcom-wl) my system crashed and left this (pastebin) in the kernel.log

R00KIE · 2009-08-06 11:06:46

lostgeek wrote:

R00KIE wrote:
I would look into one of the few components that no one ever thinks of: the power supply.
It was plugged in and fully loaded.

Haa yes it had to be plugged, I should have explainned myself better. The problem is that as a power supply gets older the operational parameters or tolerances may start to drift from what they should be causing all sorts of trouble.

I've dealt with a case of a computer crashing when decompressing a big tar.gz to disk, just a change of power supply and the problem was gone.
Another case, this time with my desktop pc, it would work just fine when loaded, games were not a problem but sometimes when hibernating (in windows) it would hang, I thought it was just some strange bug or just caused by the old age of the install ... until the power supply died, I've replaced it and guess what, problem gone.

Thats why I said before that no one ever suspects the power supply but it may very well be the source of some problems.

lostgeek · 2009-08-06 13:44:44

R00KIE wrote:

Haa yes it had to be plugged, I should have explainned myself better. The problem is that as a power supply gets older the operational parameters or tolerances may start to drift from what they should be causing all sorts of trouble.
I've dealt with a case of a computer crashing when decompressing a big tar.gz to disk, just a change of power supply and the problem was gone.
Another case, this time with my desktop pc, it would work just fine when loaded, games were not a problem but sometimes when hibernating (in windows) it would hang, I thought it was just some strange bug or just caused by the old age of the install ... until the power supply died, I've replaced it and guess what, problem gone.
Thats why I said before that no one ever suspects the power supply but it may very well be the source of some problems.

My girlfriend got the same netbook. I'll try using her power supply and waiting for a panic.

R00KIE · 2009-08-06 15:24:45

Haaa notebook ... either I missed that or you forgot to mention it before ... then this might not apply, I was talking about desktop PCs.

jamesbannon · 2009-08-07 00:14:58

Do you have the latest BIOS on your notebook?

Arch Linux

#1 2009-08-03 18:56:36

Kernel Log filled with zeros

#2 2009-08-03 22:11:47

Re: Kernel Log filled with zeros

#3 2009-08-04 12:12:55

Re: Kernel Log filled with zeros

#4 2009-08-04 13:44:45

Re: Kernel Log filled with zeros

#5 2009-08-04 13:49:05

Re: Kernel Log filled with zeros

#6 2009-08-06 08:17:06

Re: Kernel Log filled with zeros

#7 2009-08-06 11:06:46

Re: Kernel Log filled with zeros

#8 2009-08-06 13:44:44

Re: Kernel Log filled with zeros

#9 2009-08-06 15:24:45

Re: Kernel Log filled with zeros

#10 2009-08-07 00:14:58

Re: Kernel Log filled with zeros

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