OT: Unix stutter

[Leefp1 at aol.com]

FP 5.0 on SCO Unix OS 5.06

Several times per day this Unix box "stops" for 5-10 seconds for no apparent 
reason.  I use the word stop as oppose to "lock-up" because it is different 
than what I have ever seen before.  When it stops, no key strokes are accepted 
from the console or any terminal.  You can't even "Alt-Fn" to another screen.  
The system just stops.  While stopped any key strokes are NOT stored, i.e. 
when it "starts" the key strokes entered during the stop are NOT processed.  It 
starts again on its own with no action taken by a user.  It is not a fatal 
error but, obviously, very annoying in a busy office environment.

I asked this question about a few months ago when it first started and did 
not get much response.  A few weeks ago this machine had a hard drive failure 
and I thought perhaps when I replaced the hard drive the problem might go away 
(not sure why I thought that... just hoping).  But it didn't, and the users are 
beginning to doubt my "guruness" since I can't fix this.

Recently I have been suspecting a memory or processor problem, at least 
something hardware related... my hardware builder thinks maybe a cache problem.  
I'm stumped.

Am I not thinking about some Unix setting?  Has anyone ever experienced such 
a problem?  Any ideas where to start looking for the problem?  TIA.

-Lee

----------------------------------------------
Lee B. Walker
Walker & Company
5307 Front Royal Drive
Cross Lanes, WV 25313
304.419.0013
lee at walkeronline.com
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