[ILUG] Re: A frustrating system (hardware?) failure: any tips on how to resolve

[keith]

i figure you will just have to keep swapping bits in and out till you  
get it stable.   booting from a stick gives you the chance of pulling  
all the drives out of circuit.

a "time random/definite fai|" is a nuisance but one step easier to  
diagnose than a totally random fault.

if all the individual parts check out ok then look to power supply  
issues.
also consider heat related failures: dry joint that heats up and  
opens, time variable depending on component load and environment temp  
etc.

i had a prob like that a few years back.. turned out it was a bad  
heat-sink joint on a video card.

my 2c!