I've been using the MDK 10 Community edition since it first came out, but lately it seems to be disintegrating around me.

Anything using opengl crashes randomly. The game/application just disappears. I can start it again right away, though, but it's really, really annoying. Sometimes it can run for hours without crashing, sometimes just a few minutes. Does this on every 3d app I've tried, from Neverwinter Nights to Crack Attack.

Sometimes, thankfully quite rarely, the whole sytems just halts. Music starts to loop, mouse cursor doesn't move, keyboard doesn't work. Can't even SSH in. It just dies.
I've no idea what's doing this. It's completely random, last happened yesterday, before that is was over a week ago.

Mplayer and Xine both randomly forget that they can play movies. Mplayer sometimes crashes when trying to play an mpeg, xine sometimes just shows a blue screen but plays the sound fine.


Where could I find log files for these so I could maybe get a hint of what's going on?
Would a reinstall help? I have the MDK 10 Official isos, are they different than the Community edition?

I had something like that happen a few years ago. The problem turned out to be bad ram. Everything was fine after I replaced my memory modules and reinstalled.

I don't remember which utility I used to check ram but you should be able to search for a free one and download it.

Also, stick with the official version and don't try community isos as a fix.

Did you download your iso files ? And if so did you verify them using the md5 sums ?

I work with computer hardware everyday and it really sounds like a hardware problem.

I would try to diagnose the hardware completely if I had problems like that. The problem is that it could be any component thats causing it.

Try Memtest86 and check if it gives errors. If it does, it's the motherboard or RAM that's faulty. If not, you should somehow check your display adapter card and processor. Maybe testing with another components?

Hope this helps...

Well, I tested with the memory tester that's included in the SuSE 7.2 installer, and errors it gave. After 406 megabytes I have 41 errors, it said.
Weird, never had memory gone bad on me.
So tell me, do memory modules usually detoriate over time, or could I maybe get a new module from warranty?

Well, can't say 'usually' but it does happen.