[ILUG] [OT] Unexplainable crashing

[Kenn Humborg]

> Okay, this doesn't seem to have anything to do with Linux, I'm afraid.
> What's happening is that my computer is crashing a few times during the
> day, but especially in the evening when I'm online.  The computer doesn't
> freeze or anything, it just suddenly restarts for no apparent reason.  It
> sometimes does this when it is unattended, sitting silently on its own.  I
> don't know what's wrong.  The computer is a home-brew so I have no-one to
> complain to.  It worked fine for a few weeks, until I brought the computer
> to the RDS for the Young Scientist exhibition.  It may have got a knock or
> something, but I checked that everything is in position and all the wires
> are plugged in right.

Take the machine apart _completely_.  Then put it back together again :-)

Chances are something has worked a bit loose.

Is it overclocked?  If so, run it at rated speed.

> One thing I did notice is that it doesn't crash in Linux as much
> as it does
> in Windows.

You mention problems running X, so if you're running Linux in
text mode, it might be graphics card-related.  Another difference
is that Linux tends to allocate RAM from the top of physical
memory down, while IIRC Windows allocates bottom up, so you
can see different behaviour if you've got bad RAM somewhere
(or a loose DIMM).

Windows might also run the CPU slightly warmer than Linux.

A good test would be to boot Linux up in text mode and run large
compiles (say a kernel or mozilla) repeatedly.  This will stress
your CPU, memory, PCI & disks quite heavily.

Later,
Kenn