[OpenIndiana-discuss] Spontaneous reboot before installation complete

[Willard Korfhage]

On 8/23/2012 5:05 AM, Jim Klimov wrote:
> 2012-08-23 8:00, Willard Korfhage пишет:
>> I'm trying to install OI 151a5 desktop on a SuperMicro X9SCL-F-O
>> motherboard (C202 PCH chipset) with 12GB of ram and an Intel E3-1230
>> CPU. I put the live image on a USB stick. I am installing the OS into a
>> 30GB partition on a new 128GB Kingston SSDNow V200 SSD
>>
>> I can run the live image from the USB drive by selecting the VESA
>> display option on the boot menu (with the top option, the machine is
>> slow to the point of being almost frozen). I go through the installation
>> process, and 28% through, while the status says "Transferring Contents,"
>> the cursor freezes, and the machine reboots with garbage on the screen.
>>
>> Any suggestions on how I can get past this problem?
>
>
> Try to monitor the /var/adm/messages output and the installer wizard
> logs, if you find them ;)
>
> Also check the integrity (md5sum, sha1sum) of your downloaded image
> on the stick (i.e. dd the partition image from USB into a file,
> checksum that file) - perhaps some critical blocks got damaged?
>
> I posted some notes on manual installation - bypassing the wizard -
> http://wiki.openindiana.org/oi/Advanced+-+Manual+installation+of+OpenIndiana+from+LiveCD+media 
>
>
> See if this way of copying helps... though I wouldn't expect a box
> to reboot due to (userland) errors in transfer of bulk files from
> live media to the new rpool.
>
> Ultimately, it is possible to have hardware errors (the SSD maybe -
> check iostat -E or smartctl to see if there are any known media
> errors), unsupported new chipsets, etc.
>
> Possibly booting with the kernel debugger can help - at least
> to the point that instead of rebooting the box would print a
> panic message and you'd copy that to the list.
>
> HTH,
> //Jim

For the record, the problem turned out to be memory incompatibility. 
Nothing suspicious was in /var/adm/messages, and changing the disk 
didn't help, so I suspected memory. I couldn't find a version of memtest 
that would run on this motherboard, but swapping among the Super Talent 
DRAM sticks yielded the same problematic behavior, so I changed brands, 
and that worked. Super Talent W133EB4GM (4GB sticks) didn't work, but 
Kingston KVR1333D3E9SK2/4G were fine.