Red Hat Linux 9 Crash
 

Hi,
I wasn't doing anything out of the ordinary, just browsing the internet. Only Vim, Mozilla, and SSH were running. Then, out of the blue, the screen went black, monitor switched to power-saving mode, and the computer wasn't responding.

No error messages, or anything at all. I tried Ctrl Alt Backspace, Alt F2, nothing worked. So I restarted the computer

I know you probably need other info such as my hardware configuration, etc., but I don't know where to find them on Red Hat, as I'm relatively new to Linux. All I can say is that there were orphaned inodes on /tmp. All other partitions were clean. I don't know if this will help, but it's the best I can do.

Thanks in advance

is this just a one-off crash, or is it a recurring thing? also is your computer now functioning normally, or has something been changed/broken. I normally get several orphaned inodes whenever I crash (rarely, and almost never because of Linux, but my hardware is unreliable and I've not bothered fixing it yet) just because HDDs don't like having their power cut rudely as happens in a hard reboot.

It has happened to me once before, and just like this time, everything seemed to be normal, before the screen went blank, and I had to reset. And, just like this time, there were several orphaned inodes.

the classic cause of umpredictable failures is bad hardware, especially bad RAM. keep a careful note of what happens around your crashes and try to establish a pattern. if you can't, or you don't have time, try swapping bits of hardware around - RAM is most likely and easiest. swap it with a mate, and if their system crashes then you know your RAM is screwed, if yours is still playing up, it's not the RAM...you know the deal.
MN

Could also be a power savings setting that is causing the snag. Check the settings in the bios!

I don't think it is a RAM problem, since I dual-boot Linux with WinXP, and I never had anything of that sort on WinXP. As for power savings, it's the same thing, Windoze works fine.

What I was considering lately is, could the problem be due to the new kernel released? I remember that before upgrading to 2.4.2*, I didn't seem to have those problems. Could my hardware have problems specifically with the new kernel?

that's possible, different kernels are bound to have slightly different problems. I am awaiting 2.6 quite eagerly.
also, I wouldn't discount the power savin thing so fast: I worked with a laptop which blanked out after 15 minutes of use under Linux but was fine under Windoze. I thought about it and tracked it down to the different way Linux handles USB mice: the system wasn't detecting mouse or keyboard activity due to the USB mouse, so it shut off the display. Check BIOS for power saving settings jut in case. no point discounting possibilities when you haven't tested them.

Actually even if the powersaving settings (PSS) work in windows they might actually cause problems in Linux, some sort of bios snag.

If your bios has anything like a DOS setting or a disable power saving features I would really give it a try.

Ive experienced similar problems and all I had to do was changing the PSS to DOS and everything was dandy :)