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

[Chad Woolley]

It was crashed again this morning.

You know, I do think it might be heat.  That has some correlation with
the crashes.  My "office" is the storeroom out back, so I keep it cool
during the day (window AC), but it gets hot at night (with 3 computers
on 24/7).  All fans work.  I have a huge CPU fan, multiple case fans,
and was very careful with my thermal paste, but it could be another
component besides the CPU.

I have had the cover off the box for most of the past year, but
coincidentally I just put it back on last week, and the crashes DO
seem to have increased (last 2 mornings, whereas I made it for weeks
of uptime in the winter-fall).

I guess I'll take the cover back off, and point a clip-on fan at the
motherboard, and see if that helps.

Do any of you know if there's a relatively cheap product that has
temparature sensors to capture data, and plugs into a usb/serial port?
 Then I can do trend analysis on the actual temparatures of various
components, and see if high temparatures correlate with the crashes.
I'm sure I could build something from scratch, but I don't want to
take that much time.

Thanks for the advice, and I'll also check the logs and use the X
restart methods you mentioned.

-- Chad

On 8/2/06, Jeremy D Rogers <jdrogers at optics.arizona.edu> wrote:
> On 8/2/06, Ronald Sutherland <rsutherland at epccs.com> wrote:
> > Sounds like hot hardware to me... open the case blow the dust off
> [snip]
> > damaged, bits will flip even if cold. Anyway good luck... and stay cool.
>
> Also great advice. Do you run AC or swamp cooler? :-)