how to find out the reason for a system crash

Jordan&&&& · 02-22-2008, 08:10 AM

I am running OpenSuse 10.3 and it crashes regularly. What tools are available to find out the reason? What should I look for in system logs? I guess that the reason is a driver? How can I check whether a kernel module caused the system crashes?

Cheers.

{BBI}Nexus{BBI} · 02-22-2008, 08:15 AM

Does the whole system go down or just your desktop? You could take a look in your .xsession-errors file if it's your desktop.

ronlau9 · 02-22-2008, 10:07 AM

It also can became unstable when you,re packages dependencies is not correct you can check it using yast > software management there is box
called check

all the best

Jordan&&&& · 02-22-2008, 02:40 PM

The whole system crashes. It crashed during installation a few hours ago. It is not a package issue. I still don't have a clue what's wrong.

{BBI}Nexus{BBI} · 02-22-2008, 02:44 PM

Some error messages (if available) would help. Is the system totally unresponsive?

gilead · 02-22-2008, 03:07 PM

There might be some info in /var/log/messages or /var/log/syslog - it depends on how the crash is happening. If it happens regularly you could try running top in a terminal window and keep an eye on what is happening. The sysstat utilities might let you see if there are high loads on your system (CPU, RAM, IO, etc.) prior to the crash.

Also, are you getting hardware warnings for anything (temperature, etc.) in your BIOS? Have you run something like memtest from the system rescue cd to check your memory?

Jordan&&&& · 02-24-2008, 06:10 AM

Yes the system is totally unresponsive on crash.

I turned off the APIC from the BIOS and it hasn't crashed until now. I guess that was the problem.

Thank you for your posts.