[CentOS] problem with machine "freezing" for short periods

[m.roth at 5-cent.us]

Vanhorn, Mike wrote:
>
> I have two HP dc7800 convertible minitowers that are exhibiting the
> following issue: every 5-10 minutes, they will "freeze" for about 30
> seconds, and then pick right back up again. During the freeze, it seems
> that nothing at all happens on the system; the clock doesn't even advance
> (it just picks up again with the next second, and that 30-or-so seconds
> are lost).
>
> I've tried both CentOS 5.8 and 5.7, thinking it was a kernel
> incompatibility, but the problem happened with both versions. I have tried
> different hard drives, different memory, even swapped the entire machine,
> and the problem exists everywhere. I have tried adding "pci=nommconf" to
> the kernel line, as that was reported as being necessary back with 5.2 on
> these machines, but that made no difference (and shouldn't be necessary
> now, anyway, as I believe the issue has either been fixed or
> worked-around).
<snip>
When you say "swapped the entire machine", what did you do? Also, what's
running on them? Have you tried running top -d 10 or smaller (that will
update the screen every 10 secs; I only recently found that current top
allows tenths of a second.

If you don't see anything, I'd suggest you call HP, assuming they're still
under warranty.

      mark