Hey guys i have a box running cent OS 3.7 linux here are the specs.

Pentium III 550mhz
512 RAM
intel 440bx mobo
Dlink ethernet 10/100

here is the problem randomly usually over a period of a few days i'll come to log into the system and notice the power LED still on however the screen is black and i cannot SSH or do anything but hold the power button to restart it. I know linux is a very stable OS so i am having a hard time believing that its a software issue. I am more inclined to say its hardware related however i have not been able to track it down. I have disabled most of the power management features i am aware of because at first i thought that was the issue. Anyways, any help would be much appreciated thank you.

Are there any weird errors in the logs? (/var/log/messages /var/log/dmesg).

Check /var/log/messages for errors just befor the failure (you'll see the syslog restart message from your last boot, then look up in the file).

This is typically a heat or power problem. Once, I've also seen a flacky PCI card cause this.

Some likely causes:

- failed or disconnected fan causing an overheat
- excessive dust accumulation
- failing power supply
- power spikes - a high current device on the same electrical circuit, like a laser printer, vacuum, failing UPS or surge suppressor, etc.
- induced power spikes - lightning, power lines "slapping" in the wind or in trees, etc.

My system log didnt show any odd errors however it does restart every hour it looks like.

Nov 30 17:00:06 alice syslogd 1.4.1: restart.
Nov 30 18:00:04 alice syslogd 1.4.1: restart.
Nov 30 19:00:04 alice syslogd 1.4.1: restart.
Nov 30 20:00:05 alice syslogd 1.4.1: restart.
Dec 1 09:01:09 alice syslogd 1.4.1: restart.
Dec 1 09:01:09 alice syslog: syslogd startup succeeded


it stopped working nov 30 until i had to hard reboot it today dec 1

That's too precise for a failure. You likely have a cron job that is shutting down your system. If this is a work system, do you have any (ex)disgruntled employees? If it is a home system, someone else has likely gotten access to your system (do you have ftp, rsh, telnet or other insecure access enabled?).

It could also be a hardware problem that is triggering the issue, initiated by a cron job. For example, a flaky USB/Firewire PCI card that is used for an hourly file copy to an external drive, or something similar. When the cron job starts, the system fails.

Could it be an APM/ACPI problem? Try booting the OS with the kernel options "acpi=off apm=off"

alright i added the kernel options acpi=off apm=off. i am gonna see if that works. I am also gonna do a fresh install of CentOS 4.4 on a new machine to see if the issue goes away