Cogs can think.

I think my 6-7 year-old x86 finally kicked the bucket. A few years ago, I was able to extend his life thanks to the ide=nodma boot parameter, which somehow allowed the faulty IDE controller to still install Linux, albeit grudgingly. Windows never complained, it just ran and chugged along fine.

Until a few days ago. I started getting blue screens (page faults in non-paged area, to be precise) completely at random, not linked to any specific action or application. I didn’t add any new drivers or applications to the system - in fact, I am very strict about what goes and doesn’t go on my Windows installations. I install a selective set of applications, applications I’ve been using for ages, that I require for OSNews, but mostly for Focus Shift; my scanner only works properly on Windows, and Paint.NET only runs on Windows reliably.

I did a thorough RAM check (I let it run 23 times), but it didn’t find anything. The drive in the machine is brand new. Those are the two key elements that can cause page faults in the non-paged area. Just to be certain, I’m running memtest86 right now. My guess, however, is that the IDE controller finally decided to end it FOR REALSIES this time, seeing the ide=nodma trick doesn’t work anymore either.

So, I’m kind of in trouble now. I already lost an OSNews story and a Focus Shift comic to the page fault errors, and I’m not keen on continuing to run through this minefield. I guess this means postponing Focus Shift (again) for a while until I come up with a solution.

I love that machine like a member of the family, for god’s sake. I have spent an insane amount of money on the thing in total, and I hate to see it go down like this.