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

[Conor Wynne]

 On 06/09/2010 04:16, paul at clubi.ie wrote:
> On Sun, 5 Sep 2010, Michael Conry wrote:
>
>> crashed after only a little bit of use (just small stuff like Web,
>> email, etc.,).  Trying to reboot, it failed.  Then tried safe mode,
>> and it worked, though I've since found that that was a red-herring.
>> The shut-down is a bit random, and may happen during first stage boot
>> (after grub, before splash), may come during fsck, or may come after
>> using the system for a few minutes to half an hour.
>>
>> If the failure happens early in the boot, I get a stack-trace with
>> contents that I could only photograph.  I'll transcribe some bits here
>> in case it means anything to anyone...
>> lots of irq stuff...
>> ret_from_intr+0x0/0x11
>> <EOI> <#MC> [<lots of address stuff>] ?panic+0x111/0x137
>> ?panic+0xa1/0x137
>> mce_panic+0x1e32/0x210
>> do_machine_check+0x7d3/0x820
>> machine_check+0x1c/0x30
>
>> I am now thinking the problem is hardware related.
>
> Probably. The machine paniced cause of a Machine Check Exception
> (MCE). These are raised by the hardware for uncorrectable hardware
> errors, such as ECC failures, temperature limits, etc. There may be
> further information logged regarding the MCE.
>
> The way it crashes after different periods of time reminds me of
> problems I've had with temperature - if you let the machine alone a
> while to cool and start it does it get further than if you restart it
> immediately? As others have said, did you check the fans?
>
> regards,

Get your hoover out and suck all the dust off the fans, heatsinks and
electronics.
The machine I'm writing on had "died" a few months ago, turns out it was
down to dust - although it looked clean.

Otherwise do as others have sais, memtest86, diags etc.
Test with a live CD as well and see if its related to your install /
kernel.