[NBLUG/talk] The dreaded random crashes!!!

[Bob Blick]

> I did a reinstall on my Debian/Etch system (2.6.18-3 stock kernel) about a
> month ago.  It has been working well for the most part, but I've been
> experiencing random crashes that force me to do a hard reset.  The
> computer
> doesn't respond to keyboard or mouse input, and I can't even ping it over
> the
> network.
>
> Since I'm running X11, I can't see if the kernel printed any error
> messages on
> the console before crashing.  I tried looking at my logs, and I can't find
> anything (although I'm not exactly sure which file(s) to look in).  Any
> ideas
> where I should look for clues?

Have you run memtest86 overnight yet? Pretty much all the times I've ever
had random lockups it's been bad memory.

Also, is this the same machine you mentioned the other day running with
all the PCI slots filled? You could have too much loading on the PCI bus
and get data errors randomly that way. If memtest86 runs all night with no
errors, that'd be the next place I'd look.

Cheers,

Bob