segmentation fault in TOP command

From: Jose Barroca (jose.barroca_at_netcabo.pt)
Date: 07/11/05

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    To: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
Date:	Mon, 11 Jul 2005 17:21:00 +0100

    Dear all,

    I'm trying to deal with a peculiar problem that came up the other day.
    I've searched the net, posted in newbie groups, but to no avail. So,
    perhaps you can lend a hand:

    Using a 2.6.12.12 straight from kernel.org:
    - I experience loss of responsiveness (mouse, keyboard, music) during
    r/w intensive operations, such as lengthy computations in matlab
    (exceeding my RAM), or a simple system update using Debian's dselect.
    Mouse clicks and keypresses don't get lost, but xmms may skip the
    tracks. And all this happens intermitently during the mentioned r-w op.
    == This did not happen with previous kernels ==

    - I had a case of FS corruption, which I could not trace. I use ext3,
    only one partition for the complete debian system. I keep my data in
    other partitions. Reason is a small disk in a laptop. This corruption
    made itself visible after a reboot, when I called top to check why bash
    was taking so long to complete a directory name (TAB press):

    rdrs@abafado:~$ top
    Segmentation fault

    Other outputs included: "can't execute binary file", "attempt to access
    beyond end of device"

    I ran e2fsck -vc to get a read-only badblock scan, but the latter came
    out clean. I had a lot of illegal inodes, though. This ext3 partition
    was never accessed by other OSs.
    == I use top on a dayly basis, so corruption happenned not long ago.
    There were no power outages, but the previous kernel (2.6.11) had
    NLS_DEFAULT=iso8859-1, whereas the new one has NLS_DEFAULT=utf8 == 

    ---
And, to sum up, I've been through a MEMTEST86, an E2FSCK, don't think
the machine was cracked (not even literally speaking), and ran SMARTCTL
-a /dev/hda.
This one had an interesting output: there was indication of an error
happening some 197 days ago. I could decipher the remaining info. Also,
the REALLOACTED_SECTOR_CT has a very high number, though it is labelled
"PRE_FAIL".
I'm quite at a loss on what to do now - where should I start looking?
And even if I simply replace "top", is that even possible, or advisable?
Eagerly waiting for your answers,
Jose
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