Valhalla Legends Archive

General => General Discussion => Topic started by: zarovich on November 28, 2005, 09:07 PM

Title: computer crashes everyday
Post by: zarovich on November 28, 2005, 09:07 PM
1.  I'm running slackware 10.2, and fluxbox
   Every day I wake up to my computer, and the mouse and keyboard do not respond.  The time says 4:42am

2.  It also crashes under windowsxp
  Windows brings up a blue screen about some hardware problem


My hardware is
80gb IDE HD (ntfs for windows xp)
160gb SATA HD
AMD 64 3400
1GB Corsair ram
Geforce 4 Ti 4200 video card
Soundblaster Audio card
Kingwin MutantX case (stock fans and PSU)

Any ideas on where to start?
Title: Re: computer crashes everyday
Post by: iago on November 28, 2005, 09:24 PM
Tail your dmesg log on Slackware. 

tail -f /var/log/dmesg

And leave it on the screen.  That should display errors as they happen.  That might or might not give you more information.

<edit> another idea: leave it off at night ;)
Title: Re: computer crashes everyday
Post by: Kp on November 28, 2005, 10:42 PM
Check for cron jobs.  If it's that reliable about hanging at 4:42 am, I'd guess that you have some cron job running around then which causes a kernel panic.  Since Windows also fails, the cron job might just be tickling some hardware problem.
Title: Re: computer crashes everyday
Post by: zarovich on November 28, 2005, 11:04 PM
my crontab had a job running at 4:40am every day... so I disabled that job, we shall see if this fixes it.
Title: Re: computer crashes everyday
Post by: MyndFyre on November 28, 2005, 11:05 PM
What job, out of curiousity?
Title: Re: computer crashes everyday
Post by: iago on November 29, 2005, 09:36 AM
4:40am is the default time for daily cron jobs. 

The following are on Slackware 10 by default:

logrotate  slocate

logrotate - rotates, compresses, and mails system logs
slocate - Security Enhanced version of the GNU Locate

I'm guessing that if it's one of those, it might be poking a harddrive problem. 
Title: Re: computer crashes everyday
Post by: Meh on November 29, 2005, 10:40 AM
Best way to check it. Set the clock to 4:39 then watch.
Title: Re: computer crashes everyday
Post by: iago on November 29, 2005, 01:36 PM
If it just freezes up, then there isn't really anything to watch. 

That's why I suggested tailing the dmesg log, since it displays errors as they happen. 
Title: Re: computer crashes everyday
Post by: rabbit on November 29, 2005, 05:07 PM
Or set a chron job to restart at 4:39:59
Title: Re: computer crashes everyday
Post by: iago on November 29, 2005, 08:33 PM
Quote from: rabbit on November 29, 2005, 05:07 PM
Or set a chron job to restart at 4:39:59

I think turning it off overnight is good, but that would probably work better.  The problem is that daily chron jobs always go at 4:40.  I guess you could just put it first.  :)