[Tfug] Persistent Linux and X Crashes. How to track down?

[Ronald Sutherland]

Sounds like hot hardware to me... open the case blow the dust off 
everything, make sure all the fans turn, add an exhaust fan to pull more 
air. Things get hot bits flip and next thing you know a software module 
goes nuts and nukes all the memory it has access to. This happens on 
Linux same as Windows BTW, although I think newer cpu's have hardware 
for fine grain memory access restrictions. Not sure how much its taken 
advantage of, but Linux may have an edge at containing the affected 
memory space. If the hardware ran hot for a while it may simply be 
damaged, bits will flip even if cold. Anyway good luck... and stay cool.

Chad Woolley wrote:
> I started running Linux as my main desktop machine about a year ago
> (I'm a software developer who works at home, and this is my work
> machine).
>
> It's a custom build box, with an intel motherboard, 4 Gig Geil RAM,
> and samsung drives with software RAID 1.
>
> The problem is I keep having persistent OS crashes/lockups.  I
> originally had Redhat + an ASUS mobo, and it was unusable.  Now that
> I'm on Ubuntu and an Intel MOBO, they are less frequent.  I've also
> swapped out the RAM multiple times, 2 gig at a time.  That had no
> effect either, I've still had crashes with multiple combinations of
> ram sticks.
>
> Lately, the crashes are not as bad.  Sometimes I can still SSH, but
> can't restart X (using /etc/init.d/xorg-common, is that right?).
> Sometimes I can ping but not SSH.  Usually I just end up hitting the
> reset button (which Ubuntu handles MUCH better than Redhat)
>
> On the most recent one, I could SSH but not start X.  The xorg log
> said nothing more informative than "a crash happened".  I didn't know
> what other logs to look in.
>
> Any ideas?  I would think that linux should be more stable, but it
> actually seems to crash as much or more than windows, in my particular
> case.  I'm sure I'm just not a L33t enough guru.  I guess my next
> steps are to research how I can restart X if I still have SSH access,
> but I haven't gotten around to that (reset is much quicker), and
> sometimes I still can't even ssh or ping.
>
> Does this sound like hardware or software to you?  It's frustrating as
> I have to depend on this box for my daily work, and I always have to
> get up early so I have time to reboot if required before the standup
> :)
>
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