my linux box keeps crashing :(
 

hi.
i am linux newbie. i have set up a fedora core 3 box which serves as a small file server.

system specs
via epia 600mhz
512 mb ram
graphic onboard
network onboard
sound onboard
everything else onboard
40 gb harddisk
dvd drive
then there are some ext3 formatted harddisks which are connected via usb2.

fedora recognized most of the hardware (those which i need anyway), i haven't tinkered with the rest. the usb2 harddisks are recognized and mounted autmaticaly (provided someone is loged in graphically). samba server is set up and working fine. there is also a imap mail server set up and a poorly configured apache.

problem is, when i copy stuff from/to the file server, every once in a while the box likes to hang it self up, and i mean hang like no response from mouse or keyboard, i have to push reset button. the hang comes not only from copying files, i tried to play around with the webserver once and (re)loaded many pages at once. that also caused a hang.

the hangs are very random because sometimes it hangs after a few megabyte of data, sometimes i can copy 60gb of data before it hangs.

please help me. how can i track the cause of the hangs?

If it locks and you have access to another computer, ssh to the locked machine and kill the process hanging the system. Should be no reason for a hard cycle.

cannot ssh, that locks too