I am running redhat9 on a box I built myself that will be used as a network storage system. While I have been stress testing it, the box seems to be running just fine except when I run setiathome which I typically run as test of how the system reacts under heavy processor load.

Running setiathome will cause the box to lock completely after it runs for serveral hours. The screen does not update, the mouse will not move, the box is not pingable on the network anymore. The only thing I can do is hit the reset button. I'm puzzled as to why this is happening and am puzzled as to how to troubleshoot further. Can anyone offer any pointers on how to troubleshoot this issue? My system info is below:

Linux localhost.localdomain 2.4.20-8 #1 Thu Mar 13 17:18:24 EST 2003 i686 athlon
i386 GNU/Linux

[root@localhost root]# dmesg
Linux version 2.4.20-8 (bhcompile@stripples.devel.redhat.com) (gcc version 3.2.2
20030222 (Red Hat Linux 3.2.2-5)) #1 Thu Mar 13 17:18:24 EST 2003
BIOS-provided physical RAM map:
BIOS-e820: 0000000000000000 - 000000000009fc00 (usable)
BIOS-e820: 000000000009fc00 - 00000000000a0000 (reserved)
BIOS-e820: 00000000000f0000 - 0000000000100000 (reserved)
BIOS-e820: 0000000000100000 - 000000003fff0000 (usable)
BIOS-e820: 000000003fff0000 - 000000003fff8000 (ACPI data)
BIOS-e820: 000000003fff8000 - 0000000040000000 (ACPI NVS)
BIOS-e820: 00000000fec00000 - 00000000fec01000 (reserved)
BIOS-e820: 00000000fee00000 - 00000000fee01000 (reserved)
BIOS-e820: 00000000fff80000 - 0000000100000000 (reserved)
127MB HIGHMEM available.
896MB LOWMEM available.
On node 0 totalpages: 262128
zone(0): 4096 pages.
zone(1): 225280 pages.
zone(2): 32752 pages.
Kernel command line: ro root=LABEL=/ hdc=ide-scsi
ide_setup: hdc=ide-scsi
Initializing CPU#0
Detected 1799.213 MHz processor.
Console: colour VGA+ 80x25
Calibrating delay loop... 3591.37 BogoMIPS
Memory: 1027384k/1048512k available (1312k kernel code, 17544k reserved, 996k da
ta, 128k init, 131008k highmem)
Dentry cache hash table entries: 131072 (order: 8, 1048576 bytes)
Inode cache hash table entries: 65536 (order: 7, 524288 bytes)
Mount cache hash table entries: 512 (order: 0, 4096 bytes)
Buffer-cache hash table entries: 65536 (order: 6, 262144 bytes)
Page-cache hash table entries: 262144 (order: 8, 1048576 bytes)
CPU: L1 I Cache: 64K (64 bytes/line), D cache 64K (64 bytes/line)
CPU: L2 Cache: 256K (64 bytes/line)
Intel machine check architecture supported.
Intel machine check reporting enabled on CPU#0.
CPU: After generic, caps: 0383fbff c1c3fbff 00000000 00000000
CPU: Common caps: 0383fbff c1c3fbff 00000000 00000000
CPU: AMD Athlon(tm) XP 2200+ stepping 00
Enabling fast FPU save and restore... done.
Enabling unmasked SIMD FPU exception support... done.
Checking 'hlt' instruction... OK.
POSIX conformance testing by UNIFIX
mtrr: v1.40 (20010327) Richard Gooch (rgooch@atnf.csiro.au)
mtrr: detected mtrr type: Intel
PCI: PCI BIOS revision 2.10 entry at 0xfdae1, last bus=2
PCI: Using configuration type 1
PCI: Probing PCI hardware
PCI: Using IRQ router default [1106/3177] at 00:11.0
PCI: Hardcoded IRQ 14 for device 00:11.1
isapnp: Scanning for PnP cards...
isapnp: No Plug & Play device found
Linux NET4.0 for Linux 2.4
Based upon Swansea University Computer Society NET3.039
Initializing RT netlink socket
apm: BIOS not found.
Starting kswapd
allocated 32 pages and 32 bhs reserved for the highmem bounces
VFS: Disk quotas vdquot_6.5.1
pty: 2048 Unix98 ptys configured
Serial driver version 5.05c (2001-07-08) with MANY_PORTS MULTIPORT SHARE_IRQ SER
IAL_PCI ISAPNP enabled
ttyS0 at 0x03f8 (irq = 4) is a 16550A
Real Time Clock Driver v1.10e
Floppy drive(s): fd0 is 1.44M
FDC 0 is a post-1991 82077
NET4: Frame Diverter 0.46
RAMDISK driver initialized: 16 RAM disks of 4096K size 1024 blocksize
Uniform Multi-Platform E-IDE driver Revision: 7.00beta-2.4
ide: Assuming 33MHz system bus speed for PIO modes; override with idebus=xx
VP_IDE: IDE controller at PCI slot 00:11.1
PCI: Hardcoded IRQ 14 for device 00:11.1
VP_IDE: chipset revision 6
VP_IDE: not 100% native mode: will probe irqs later
VP_IDE: VIA vt8235 (rev 00) IDE UDMA133 controller on pci00:11.1
ide0: BM-DMA at 0xfc00-0xfc07, BIOS settings: hda:DMA, hdb:pio
ide1: BM-DMA at 0xfc08-0xfc0f, BIOS settings: hdc:DMA, hdd:pio
hda: WDC WD200EB-32CSF0, ATA DISK drive
blk: queue c03be900, I/O limit 4095Mb (mask 0xffffffff)
hdc: LG CD-RW CED-8080B, ATAPI CD/DVD-ROM drive
ide0 at 0x1f0-0x1f7,0x3f6 on irq 14
ide1 at 0x170-0x177,0x376 on irq 15
hda: host protected area => 1
hda: 39102336 sectors (20020 MB) w/2048KiB Cache, CHS=2434/255/63, UDMA(100)
ide-floppy driver 0.99.newide
Partition check:
hda: hda1 hda2 hda3 hda4 < hda5 >
ide-floppy driver 0.99.newide
md: md driver 0.90.0 MAX_MD_DEVS=256, MD_SB_DISKS=27
md: Autodetecting RAID arrays.
md: autorun ...
md: ... autorun DONE.
NET4: Linux TCP/IP 1.0 for NET4.0
IP Protocols: ICMP, UDP, TCP, IGMP
IP: routing cache hash table of 8192 buckets, 64Kbytes
TCP: Hash tables configured (established 262144 bind 65536)
Linux IP multicast router 0.06 plus PIM-SM
NET4: Unix domain sockets 1.0/SMP for Linux NET4.0.
RAMDISK: Compressed image found at block 0
Freeing initrd memory: 223k freed
VFS: Mounted root (ext2 filesystem).
SCSI subsystem driver Revision: 1.00
Found PTI SuperTrak at mbase: 0xdd800000, irq 10.
scsi0 : PROMISE SuperTrak SX6000 Driver
Vendor: PTI Model: SuperTrak Rev:
Type: Direct-Access ANSI SCSI revision: 02
Attached scsi disk sda at scsi0, channel 0, id 0, lun 0
SCSI device sda: 1172207360 512-byte hdwr sectors (600170 MB)
sda: sda1
Journalled Block Device driver loaded
EXT3-fs: INFO: recovery required on readonly filesystem.
EXT3-fs: write access will be enabled during recovery.
kjournald starting. Commit interval 5 seconds
EXT3-fs: ide0(3,5): orphan cleanup on readonly fs
ext3_orphan_cleanup: deleting unreferenced inode 439836
ext3_orphan_cleanup: deleting unreferenced inode 439826
ext3_orphan_cleanup: deleting unreferenced inode 439824
ext3_orphan_cleanup: deleting unreferenced inode 114228
ext3_orphan_cleanup: deleting unreferenced inode 114172
ext3_orphan_cleanup: deleting unreferenced inode 293209
ext3_orphan_cleanup: deleting unreferenced inode 293207
ext3_orphan_cleanup: deleting unreferenced inode 293205
ext3_orphan_cleanup: deleting unreferenced inode 293199
ext3_orphan_cleanup: deleting unreferenced inode 439842
ext3_orphan_cleanup: deleting unreferenced inode 439820
ext3_orphan_cleanup: deleting unreferenced inode 439816
ext3_orphan_cleanup: deleting unreferenced inode 439814
ext3_orphan_cleanup: deleting unreferenced inode 439793
ext3_orphan_cleanup: deleting unreferenced inode 489860
EXT3-fs: ide0(3,5): 15 orphan inodes deleted
EXT3-fs: recovery complete.
EXT3-fs: mounted filesystem with ordered data mode.
Freeing unused kernel memory: 128k freed
usb.c: registered new driver usbdevfs
usb.c: registered new driver hub
ehci-hcd 00:10.3: VIA Technologies, Inc. USB 2.0
ehci-hcd 00:10.3: irq 3, pci mem f8c71e00
usb.c: new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 1
PCI: 00:10.3 PCI cache line size set incorrectly (32 bytes) by BIOS/FW.
PCI: 00:10.3 PCI cache line size corrected to 64.
ehci-hcd 00:10.3: USB 2.0 enabled, EHCI 1.00, driver 2003-Jan-22
hub.c: USB hub found
hub.c: 6 ports detected
usb-uhci.c: $Revision: 1.275 $ time 17:26:20 Mar 13 2003
usb-uhci.c: High bandwidth mode enabled
usb-uhci.c: USB UHCI at I/O 0xe800, IRQ 5
usb-uhci.c: Detected 2 ports
usb.c: new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 2
hub.c: USB hub found
hub.c: 2 ports detected
usb-uhci.c: USB UHCI at I/O 0xe400, IRQ 10
usb-uhci.c: Detected 2 ports
usb.c: new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 3
hub.c: USB hub found
hub.c: 2 ports detected
usb-uhci.c: USB UHCI at I/O 0xe000, IRQ 11
usb-uhci.c: Detected 2 ports
usb.c: new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 4
hub.c: USB hub found
hub.c: 2 ports detected
usb-uhci.c: v1.275:USB Universal Host Controller Interface driver
usb.c: registered new driver hiddev
usb.c: registered new driver hid
hid-core.c: v1.8.1 Andreas Gal, Vojtech Pavlik <vojtech@suse.cz>
hid-core.c: USB HID support drivers
mice: PS/2 mouse device common for all mice
EXT3 FS 2.4-0.9.19, 19 August 2002 on ide0(3,5), internal journal
Adding Swap: 3068404k swap-space (priority -1)
kjournald starting. Commit interval 5 seconds
EXT3 FS 2.4-0.9.19, 19 August 2002 on ide0(3,1), internal journal
EXT3-fs: mounted filesystem with ordered data mode.
kjournald starting. Commit interval 5 seconds
EXT3 FS 2.4-0.9.19, 19 August 2002 on sd(8,1), internal journal
EXT3-fs: mounted filesystem with ordered data mode.
kjournald starting. Commit interval 5 seconds
EXT3 FS 2.4-0.9.19, 19 August 2002 on ide0(3,3), internal journal
EXT3-fs: mounted filesystem with ordered data mode.
ohci1394: $Rev: 693 $ Ben Collins <bcollins@debian.org>
ohci1394_0: Unexpected PCI resource length of 1000!
ohci1394_0: OHCI-1394 1.0 (PCI): IRQ=[5] MMIO=[dffef000-dffef7ff] Max Packet=[
2048]
ieee1394: SelfID completion called outside of bus reset!
ieee1394: Host added: Node[00:1023] GUID[0030bd0b00000000] [Linux OHCI-1394]
scsi1 : SCSI host adapter emulation for IDE ATAPI devices
Vendor: LG Model: CD-RW CED-8080B Rev: 1.04
Type: CD-ROM ANSI SCSI revision: 02
Attached scsi CD-ROM sr0 at scsi1, channel 0, id 0, lun 0
sr0: scsi3-mmc drive: 32x/32x writer cd/rw xa/form2 cdda tray
Uniform CD-ROM driver Revision: 3.12
ip_tables: (C) 2000-2002 Netfilter core team
Linux Tulip driver version 0.9.15-pre12 (Aug 9, 2002)
tulip0: EEPROM default media type Autosense.
tulip0: Index #0 - Media 10baseT (#0) described by a 21142 Serial PHY (2) block
.
tulip0: Index #1 - Media 10baseT-FDX (#4) described by a 21142 Serial PHY (2) b
lock.
tulip0: Index #2 - Media 100baseTx (#3) described by a 21143 SYM PHY (4) block.

tulip0: Index #3 - Media 100baseTx-FDX (#5) described by a 21143 SYM PHY (4) bl
ock.
divert: allocating divert_blk for eth0
eth0: Digital DS21143 Tulip rev 48 at 0xf8e4bf80, 00:00:F8:10:B8:3D, IRQ 3.
ip_tables: (C) 2000-2002 Netfilter core team
via-rhine.c:v1.10-LK1.1.15 November-22-2002 Written by Donald Becker
<<url removed due to post limit: scyld. com>>
Invalid MAC address for card #0
ip_tables: (C) 2000-2002 Netfilter core team
lp: driver loaded but no devices found

[root@localhost root]# lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8375 [KM266] Host Bridge
00:01.0 PCI bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8633 [Apollo Pro266 AGP]
00:09.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corp. 80960RM [i960RM Bridge] (rev 02)
00:09.1 Class ff00: Intel Corp. 80960RM [i960RM Microprocessor] (rev 02)
00:0a.0 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Lucent Microelectronics FW323 (rev 04)
00:0b.0 Ethernet controller: Digital Equipment Corporation DECchip 21142/43 (rev
30)
00:10.0 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. USB (rev 80)
00:10.1 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. USB (rev 80)
00:10.2 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. USB (rev 80)
00:10.3 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. USB 2.0 (rev 82)
00:11.0 ISA bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8235 ISA Bridge
00:11.1 IDE interface: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82C586/B/686A/B PIPC Bus Master
IDE (rev 06)
00:11.5 Multimedia audio controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8233 AC97 Audio Co
ntroller (rev 50)
00:12.0 Ethernet controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT6102 [Rhine-II] (rev 74)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation NV20 [GeForce3 Ti 500] (re
v a3)


Any help would be welcomed. I have almost no hardware troubleshooting experience with linux. Pointers to good test tools would be welcomed as well.

The processor is getting too hot. Make sure that you have seated the HSF correctly and that the case has sufficient air-flow.

You are right, thank you! HSF was/is correctly seated, but the box didn't have anywhere near enough airflow. It was an old Pentium 2 full tower case that I've ripped everything out of and updated to current innards. I thought I had enough fans, but the proc and MB heat sink were way too hot. I cut a hole in the side of the case and installed a 90cfm fan blowing directly on the heatsink and I have now run stress tests for two days straight with no problems.

This box is a Frankenstein, but now it's working great.

I have a similar problem...I'm using RH 8.0 and this server is being used for backup. This is a brand new server in quite a cool room. It locks itself , I presume with high CPU usage 'coz I cannot login nor do anything unless I reset the machine. I'm posting the sysinfo for my machine as well and was wondering if somebody out there could help me resolve this.

This has been going on for the past 1 month. The only change I've made is upgraded the RAM from 512Mb to 1024 Mb. Both the 512Mb mem modules are the same config. And I haven't done anything to the swap.. This lock up has been happening even before the memory increase..

Any help would be much appreciated

[root@hahn root]# dmesg
Linux version 2.4.18-14 (bhcompile@stripples.devel.redhat.com) (gcc version 3.2
20020903 (Red Hat Linux 8.0 3.2-7)) #1 Wed Sep 4 13:35:50 EDT 2002
BIOS-provided physical RAM map:
BIOS-e820: 0000000000000000 - 000000000009e800 (usable)
BIOS-e820: 000000000009e800 - 00000000000a0000 (reserved)
BIOS-e820: 00000000000f0000 - 0000000000100000 (reserved)
BIOS-e820: 0000000000100000 - 000000003ffec000 (usable)
BIOS-e820: 000000003ffec000 - 000000003ffef000 (ACPI data)
BIOS-e820: 000000003ffef000 - 000000003ffff000 (reserved)
BIOS-e820: 000000003ffff000 - 0000000040000000 (ACPI NVS)
BIOS-e820: 00000000fec00000 - 00000000fec01000 (reserved)
BIOS-e820: 00000000fee00000 - 00000000fee01000 (reserved)
BIOS-e820: 00000000ffff0000 - 0000000100000000 (reserved)
127MB HIGHMEM available.
896MB LOWMEM available.
On node 0 totalpages: 262124
zone(0): 4096 pages.
zone(1): 225280 pages.
zone(2): 32748 pages.
Kernel command line: ro root=LABEL=/ hdc=ide-scsi hdd=ide-scsi
ide_setup: hdc=ide-scsi
ide_setup: hdd=ide-scsi
Initializing CPU#0
Detected 2405.510 MHz processor.
Speakup v-1.00 CVS: Tue Jun 11 14:22:53 EDT 2002 : initialized
Console: colour VGA+ 80x25
Calibrating delay loop... 4784.26 BogoMIPS
Memory: 1027372k/1048496k available (1326k kernel code, 17536k reserved, 999k data, 212k init, 130992k highmem)
Dentry cache hash table entries: 131072 (order: 8, 1048576 bytes)
Inode cache hash table entries: 65536 (order: 7, 524288 bytes)
Mount cache hash table entries: 16384 (order: 5, 131072 bytes)
ramfs: mounted with options: <defaults>
ramfs: max_pages=128821 max_file_pages=0 max_inodes=0 max_dentries=128821
Buffer cache hash table entries: 65536 (order: 6, 262144 bytes)
Page-cache hash table entries: 262144 (order: 8, 1048576 bytes)
CPU: Before vendor init, caps: bfebfbff 00000000 00000000, vendor = 0
CPU: L1 I cache: 0K, L1 D cache: 8K
CPU: L2 cache: 512K
CPU: After vendor init, caps: bfebfbff 00000000 00000000 00000000
Intel machine check architecture supported.
Intel machine check reporting enabled on CPU#0.
CPU: After generic, caps: bfebfbff 00000000 00000000 00000000
CPU: Common caps: bfebfbff 00000000 00000000 00000000
CPU: Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 2.40GHz stepping 07
Enabling fast FPU save and restore... done.
Enabling unmasked SIMD FPU exception support... done.
Checking 'hlt' instruction... OK.
POSIX conformance testing by UNIFIX
mtrr: v1.40 (20010327) Richard Gooch (rgooch@atnf.csiro.au)
mtrr: detected mtrr type: Intel
PCI: PCI BIOS revision 2.10 entry at 0xf1e50, last bus=3
PCI: Using configuration type 1
PCI: Probing PCI hardware
Unknown bridge resource 0: assuming transparent
Unknown bridge resource 0: assuming transparent
Unknown bridge resource 1: assuming transparent
Unknown bridge resource 2: assuming transparent
PCI: Using IRQ router PIIX [8086/24c0] at 00:1f.0
isapnp: Scanning for PnP cards...
isapnp: No Plug & Play device found
speakup: initialized device: /dev/synth, node (MAJOR 10, MINOR 25)
Linux NET4.0 for Linux 2.4
Based upon Swansea University Computer Society NET3.039
Initializing RT netlink socket
apm: BIOS version 1.2 Flags 0x03 (Driver version 1.16)
Starting kswapd
allocated 64 pages and 64 bhs reserved for the highmem bounces
VFS: Diskquotas version dquot_6.5.0 initialized
pty: 2048 Unix98 ptys configured
Serial driver version 5.05c (2001-07-08) with MANY_PORTS MULTIPORT SHARE_IRQ SERIAL_PCI ISAPNP enabled
ttyS0 at 0x03f8 (irq = 4) is a 16550A
ttyS1 at 0x02f8 (irq = 3) is a 16550A
Real Time Clock Driver v1.10e
oprofile: can't get RTC I/O Ports
block: 1024 slots per queue, batch=256
Uniform Multi-Platform E-IDE driver Revision: 6.31
ide: Assuming 33MHz system bus speed for PIO modes; override with idebus=xx
PIIX4: IDE controller on PCI bus 00 dev f9
PCI: Found IRQ 9 for device 00:1f.1
PCI: Sharing IRQ 9 with 00:1d.2
PCI: Sharing IRQ 9 with 02:0e.0
PIIX4: chipset revision 2
PIIX4: not 100% native mode: will probe irqs later
ide0: BM-DMA at 0xf000-0xf007, BIOS settings: hdaio, hdbio
ide1: BM-DMA at 0xf008-0xf00f, BIOS settings: hdcMA, hddMA
hdc: ASUS CRW-4824A, ATAPI CD/DVD-ROM drive
hdd: ASUS DVD-RW DRW-0402P, ATAPI CD/DVD-ROM drive
ide1 at 0x170-0x177,0x376 on irq 15
ide-floppy driver 0.99.newide
Floppy drive(s): fd0 is 1.44M
FDC 0 is a post-1991 82077
NET4: Frame Diverter 0.46
RAMDISK driver initialized: 16 RAM disks of 4096K size 1024 blocksize
ide-floppy driver 0.99.newide
md: md driver 0.90.0 MAX_MD_DEVS=256, MD_SB_DISKS=27
md: Autodetecting RAID arrays.
md: autorun ...
md: ... autorun DONE.
NET4: Linux TCP/IP 1.0 for NET4.0
IP Protocols: ICMP, UDP, TCP, IGMP
IP: routing cache hash table of 8192 buckets, 64Kbytes
TCP: Hash tables configured (established 262144 bind 65536)
Linux IP multicast router 0.06 plus PIM-SM
NET4: Unix domain sockets 1.0/SMP for Linux NET4.0.
RAMDISK: Compressed image found at block 0
Freeing initrd memory: 204k freed
VFS: Mounted root (ext2 filesystem).
SCSI subsystem driver Revision: 1.00
kmod: failed to exec /sbin/modprobe -s -k scsi_hostadapter, errno = 2
PCI: Found IRQ 9 for device 02:0a.1
Found PTI SuperTrak at mbase: 0xee800000, irq 9.
scsi0 : PROMISE SuperTrak SX6000 Driver
Vendor: PTI Model: SuperTrak Rev:
Type: Direct-Access ANSI SCSI revision: 02
Attached scsi disk sda at scsi0, channel 0, id 0, lun 0
SCSI device sda: 1166015616 512-byte hdwr sectors (-502511 MB)
Partition check:
sda: sda1 sda2 sda3 sda4 < sda5 sda6 sda7 >
Journalled Block Device driver loaded
EXT3-fs: INFO: recovery required on readonly filesystem.
EXT3-fs: write access will be enabled during recovery.
kjournald starting. Commit interval 5 seconds
EXT3-fs: sd(8,6): orphan cleanup on readonly fs
ext3_orphan_cleanup: deleting unreferenced inode 212181
ext3_orphan_cleanup: deleting unreferenced inode 212180
ext3_orphan_cleanup: deleting unreferenced inode 212177
EXT3-fs: sd(8,6): 3 orphan inodes deleted
EXT3-fs: recovery complete.
EXT3-fs: mounted filesystem with ordered data mode.
Freeing unused kernel memory: 212k freed
usb.c: registered new driver usbdevfs
usb.c: registered new driver hub
PCI: Found IRQ 11 for device 00:1d.7
PCI: Setting latency timer of device 00:1d.7 to 64
hcd.c: ehci-hcd @ 00:1d.7, Intel Corp. 82801DB USB EHCI Controller
hcd.c: irq 11, pci mem f8c72000
usb.c: new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 1
ehci-hcd.c: restricting 64bit DMA mappings to segment 0 ...
ehci-hcd.c: USB 2.0 support enabled, EHCI rev 1. 0
hub.c: USB hub found
hub.c: 6 ports detected
usb-uhci.c: $Revision: 1.275 $ time 13:44:31 Sep 4 2002
usb-uhci.c: High bandwidth mode enabled
PCI: Found IRQ 5 for device 00:1d.0
PCI: Sharing IRQ 5 with 01:00.0
PCI: Setting latency timer of device 00:1d.0 to 64
usb-uhci.c: USB UHCI at I/O 0xd800, IRQ 5
usb-uhci.c: Detected 2 ports
usb.c: new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 2
hub.c: USB hub found
hub.c: 2 ports detected
PCI: Found IRQ 9 for device 00:1d.1
PCI: Setting latency timer of device 00:1d.1 to 64
usb-uhci.c: USB UHCI at I/O 0xd400, IRQ 9
usb-uhci.c: Detected 2 ports
usb.c: new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 3
hub.c: USB hub found
hub.c: 2 ports detected
PCI: Found IRQ 9 for device 00:1d.2
PCI: Sharing IRQ 9 with 00:1f.1
PCI: Sharing IRQ 9 with 02:0e.0
PCI: Setting latency timer of device 00:1d.2 to 64
usb-uhci.c: USB UHCI at I/O 0xd000, IRQ 9
usb-uhci.c: Detected 2 ports
usb.c: new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 4
hub.c: USB hub found
hub.c: 2 ports detected
usb-uhci.c: v1.275:USB Universal Host Controller Interface driver
usb.c: registered new driver hiddev
usb.c: registered new driver hid
hid-core.c: v1.8.1 Andreas Gal, Vojtech Pavlik <vojtech@suse.cz>
hid-core.c: USB HID support drivers
mice: PS/2 mouse device common for all mice
EXT3 FS 2.4-0.9.18, 14 May 2002 on sd(8,6), internal journal
Adding Swap: 1048568k swap-space (priority -1)
kjournald starting. Commit interval 5 seconds
EXT3 FS 2.4-0.9.18, 14 May 2002 on sd(8,1), internal journal
EXT3-fs: mounted filesystem with ordered data mode.
kjournald starting. Commit interval 5 seconds
EXT3 FS 2.4-0.9.18, 14 May 2002 on sd(8,5), internal journal
EXT3-fs: mounted filesystem with ordered data mode.
kjournald starting. Commit interval 5 seconds
EXT3 FS 2.4-0.9.18, 14 May 2002 on sd(8,2), internal journal
EXT3-fs: mounted filesystem with ordered data mode.
kjournald starting. Commit interval 5 seconds
EXT3 FS 2.4-0.9.18, 14 May 2002 on sd(8,7), internal journal
EXT3-fs: mounted filesystem with ordered data mode.
scsi1 : SCSI host adapter emulation for IDE ATAPI devices
Vendor: ASUS Model: CRW-4824A Rev: 1.0
Type: CD-ROM ANSI SCSI revision: 02
Vendor: ASUS Model: DVD-RW DRW-0402P Rev: 1.10
Type: CD-ROM ANSI SCSI revision: 02
parport0: PC-style at 0x378 (0x778) [PCSPP,TRISTATE]
parport0: irq 7 detected
ohci1394: pci_module_init failed
ip_tables: (C) 2000-2002 Netfilter core team
PCI: Found IRQ 9 for device 02:0e.0
PCI: Sharing IRQ 9 with 00:1d.2
PCI: Sharing IRQ 9 with 00:1f.1
3c59x: Donald Becker and others. www.scyld.com/network/vortex.html
02:0e.0: 3Com PCI 3c905C Tornado at 0xb800. Vers LK1.1.18-ac
divert: allocating divert_blk for eth0
Cyclades driver 2.3.2.8 2000/07/06 18:14:16
built Sep 4 2002 13:39:09
rc: SDL RISCom/8 card driver v1.1, (c) D.Gorodchanin 1994-1996.
rc0: RISCom/8 Board at 0x220 not found.
rc1: RISCom/8 Board at 0x240 not found.
rc2: RISCom/8 Board at 0x250 not found.
rc3: RISCom/8 Board at 0x260 not found.
rc: No RISCom/8 boards detected.
rc: SDL RISCom/8 card driver v1.1, (c) D.Gorodchanin 1994-1996.
rc0: RISCom/8 Board at 0x220 not found.
rc1: RISCom/8 Board at 0x240 not found.
rc2: RISCom/8 Board at 0x250 not found.
rc3: RISCom/8 Board at 0x260 not found.
rc: No RISCom/8 boards detected.
rc: SDL RISCom/8 card driver v1.1, (c) D.Gorodchanin 1994-1996.
rc0: RISCom/8 Board at 0x220 not found.
rc1: RISCom/8 Board at 0x240 not found.
rc2: RISCom/8 Board at 0x250 not found.
rc3: RISCom/8 Board at 0x260 not found.
rc: No RISCom/8 boards detected.
rc: SDL RISCom/8 card driver v1.1, (c) D.Gorodchanin 1994-1996.
rc0: RISCom/8 Board at 0x220 not found.
rc1: RISCom/8 Board at 0x240 not found.
rc2: RISCom/8 Board at 0x250 not found.
rc3: RISCom/8 Board at 0x260 not found.
rc: No RISCom/8 boards detected.
rc: SDL RISCom/8 card driver v1.1, (c) D.Gorodchanin 1994-1996.
rc0: RISCom/8 Board at 0x220 not found.
rc1: RISCom/8 Board at 0x240 not found.
rc2: RISCom/8 Board at 0x250 not found.
rc3: RISCom/8 Board at 0x260 not found.
rc: No RISCom/8 boards detected.
rc: SDL RISCom/8 card driver v1.1, (c) D.Gorodchanin 1994-1996.
rc0: RISCom/8 Board at 0x220 not found.
rc1: RISCom/8 Board at 0x240 not found.
rc2: RISCom/8 Board at 0x250 not found.
rc3: RISCom/8 Board at 0x260 not found.
rc: No RISCom/8 boards detected.
rc: SDL RISCom/8 card driver v1.1, (c) D.Gorodchanin 1994-1996.
rc0: RISCom/8 Board at 0x220 not found.
rc1: RISCom/8 Board at 0x240 not found.
rc2: RISCom/8 Board at 0x250 not found.
rc3: RISCom/8 Board at 0x260 not found.
rc: No RISCom/8 boards detected.
rc: SDL RISCom/8 card driver v1.1, (c) D.Gorodchanin 1994-1996.
rc0: RISCom/8 Board at 0x220 not found.
rc1: RISCom/8 Board at 0x240 not found.
rc2: RISCom/8 Board at 0x250 not found.
rc3: RISCom/8 Board at 0x260 not found.
rc: No RISCom/8 boards detected.
rc: SDL RISCom/8 card driver v1.1, (c) D.Gorodchanin 1994-1996.
rc0: RISCom/8 Board at 0x220 not found.
rc1: RISCom/8 Board at 0x240 not found.
rc2: RISCom/8 Board at 0x250 not found.
rc3: RISCom/8 Board at 0x260 not found.
rc: No RISCom/8 boards detected.
rc: SDL RISCom/8 card driver v1.1, (c) D.Gorodchanin 1994-1996.
rc0: RISCom/8 Board at 0x220 not found.
rc1: RISCom/8 Board at 0x240 not found.
rc2: RISCom/8 Board at 0x250 not found.
rc3: RISCom/8 Board at 0x260 not found.
rc: No RISCom/8 boards detected.
rc: SDL RISCom/8 card driver v1.1, (c) D.Gorodchanin 1994-1996.
rc0: RISCom/8 Board at 0x220 not found.
rc1: RISCom/8 Board at 0x240 not found.
rc2: RISCom/8 Board at 0x250 not found.
rc3: RISCom/8 Board at 0x260 not found.
rc: No RISCom/8 boards detected.
rc: SDL RISCom/8 card driver v1.1, (c) D.Gorodchanin 1994-1996.
rc0: RISCom/8 Board at 0x220 not found.
rc1: RISCom/8 Board at 0x240 not found.
rc2: RISCom/8 Board at 0x250 not found.
rc3: RISCom/8 Board at 0x260 not found.
rc: No RISCom/8 boards detected.
rc: SDL RISCom/8 card driver v1.1, (c) D.Gorodchanin 1994-1996.
rc0: RISCom/8 Board at 0x220 not found.
rc1: RISCom/8 Board at 0x240 not found.
rc2: RISCom/8 Board at 0x250 not found.
rc3: RISCom/8 Board at 0x260 not found.
rc: No RISCom/8 boards detected.
rc: SDL RISCom/8 card driver v1.1, (c) D.Gorodchanin 1994-1996.
rc0: RISCom/8 Board at 0x220 not found.
rc1: RISCom/8 Board at 0x240 not found.
rc2: RISCom/8 Board at 0x250 not found.
rc3: RISCom/8 Board at 0x260 not found.
rc: No RISCom/8 boards detected.
rc: SDL RISCom/8 card driver v1.1, (c) D.Gorodchanin 1994-1996.
rc0: RISCom/8 Board at 0x220 not found.
rc1: RISCom/8 Board at 0x240 not found.
rc2: RISCom/8 Board at 0x250 not found.
rc3: RISCom/8 Board at 0x260 not found.
rc: No RISCom/8 boards detected.
rc: SDL RISCom/8 card driver v1.1, (c) D.Gorodchanin 1994-1996.
rc0: RISCom/8 Board at 0x220 not found.
rc1: RISCom/8 Board at 0x240 not found.
rc2: RISCom/8 Board at 0x250 not found.
rc3: RISCom/8 Board at 0x260 not found.
rc: No RISCom/8 boards detected.
ESP serial driver version 2.2 (DMA 0)
Intel 810 + AC97 Audio, version 0.22, 13:45:06 Sep 4 2002
PCI: Found IRQ 9 for device 00:1f.5
PCI: Setting latency timer of device 00:1f.5 to 64
i810: Intel ICH4 found at IO 0xa400 and 0xa800, IRQ 9
i810_audio: Audio Controller supports 6 channels.
i810_audio: Defaulting to base 2 channel mode.
ac97_codec: AC97 Audio codec, id: 0x4144:0x5370 (Unknown)
i810_audio: AC'97 codec 0 supports AMAP, total channels = 6
Attached scsi CD-ROM sr0 at scsi1, channel 0, id 0, lun 0
Attached scsi CD-ROM sr1 at scsi1, channel 0, id 1, lun 0
sr0: scsi3-mmc drive: 52x/52x writer cd/rw xa/form2 cdda tray
Uniform CD-ROM driver Revision: 3.12
sr1: scsi3-mmc drive: 32x/32x writer cd/rw xa/form2 cdda tray
[root@hahn root]# lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corp. 82845G/GL [Brookdale-G] Chipset Host Bridge (rev 02)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corp. 82845G/GL [Brookdale-G] Chipset AGP Bridge (rev
02)
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corp. 82801DB USB (Hub #1) (rev 02)
00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corp. 82801DB USB (Hub #2) (rev 02)
00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corp. 82801DB USB (Hub #3) (rev 02)
00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corp. 82801DB USB EHCI Controller (rev 02)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corp. 82801BA/CA/DB PCI Bridge (rev 82)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corp. 82801DB ISA Bridge (LPC) (rev 02)
00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corp. 82801DB ICH4 IDE (rev 02)
00:1f.5 Multimedia audio controller: Intel Corp. 82801DB AC'97 Audio (rev 02)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation NV1x (rev a3)
02:05.0 Ethernet controller: Broadcom Corporation: Unknown device 4401 (rev 01)
02:0a.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corp. 80960RM [i960RM Bridge] (rev 02)
02:0a.1 Class ff00: Intel Corp. 80960RM [i960RM Microprocessor] (rev 02)
02:0e.0 Ethernet controller: 3Com Corporation 3c905C-TX/TX-M [Tornado] (rev 78)
[root@hahn root]#

Here are some possibilities:

1) Bad RAM - the best way to test RAM is to compile the kernel over and over. This uses lots of ram and the compiler's tree walking seems to be good at causing faults.
You can also try http://www.memtest86.com/

2) A friend had the similar symptoms when he optimised his BIOS settings incorrectly.
Check your BIOS.

3) Is the system running X on the console? If yes - disable X by switching to run level 4 and see if it stabilises. Might be a bad X driver.

4) Bad SCSI/Network/etc driver. If you have uncommon hardware, then it might pay to do some searching at your distro vendor's site and google. Maybe your drivers are out of date. For example, at one stage one of the binary-only Intel network card drivers would hang systems - very low probability - and normally under high loads - but we had 450 servers, so we'd see this about once a month.

5) Faulty mainboard - my current system's original mainboad had a voltage regulation problem that cause crashes and eventually took out the CPU. Use cron to run lm_sensors to gather termperature and voltage stats and plot them - perhaps using rrd as your plotting tool.

6) Cable problems - check connections.