LinuxQuestions.org - Is there a sys monitoring program that is helpful to detect why a system crashes?

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Is there a sys monitoring program that is helpful to detect why a system crashes?

H. Both me and my friend have a system with Fedora Core 5 and if he leaves his desktop unattended like going to bed it shuts off and he doesn't know why. I have a Toshiba laptop that does the same but i know it is because of overheating essentially. Is there a program we can install that is specifically or really good at diagnosing system crashes? thanks for any replies in advance.

i dont know of any _program_, but a log you can check is from /var/log/messages i believe. or 'dmesg' command as root, the output is chronological--so the last line is the most recent message.

does this happen in another OS (windows?) does it happen under any load--bare minimum load and medium (ie downloads, file sharing)? is there hardware components you can cancel out? such as PCI soundcards or network cards that you unplug and leave it overnight to see the result?

It could be worth while installing lm_sensors and watching temperatures and voltages. Once installed there are a number of KDE and Gnome interfaces to it.

Note that, depending on your chipset, lm_sensors can be difficult to configure.

Quote:

Originally Posted by davcefai

thanks i'll try that out. I fell asleep last night with my laptop on and when i woke up it was off. The first thing i did when i logged back in was check /var/log/messages.

Code:

[root@localhost jeff]# tail /var/log/messages

Dec 10 06:29:38 localhost kernel: agpgart: Found an AGP 2.0 compliant device at 0000:00:00.0.

Dec 10 06:29:38 localhost kernel: agpgart: Putting AGP V2 device at 0000:00:00.0 into 1x mode

Dec 10 06:29:38 localhost kernel: agpgart: Putting AGP V2 device at 0000:01:00.0 into 1x mode

Dec 10 06:29:43 localhost ainit:

Dec 10 06:29:43 localhost ainit:

Dec 10 06:29:43 localhost gconfd (jeff-2340): starting (version 2.14.0), pid 2340 user 'jeff'

Dec 10 06:29:44 localhost gconfd (jeff-2340): Resolved address "xml:readonly:/etc/gconf/gconf.xml.mandatory" to a read-only configuration source at position 0

Dec 10 06:29:44 localhost gconfd (jeff-2340): Resolved address "xml:readwrite:/home/jeff/.gconf" to a writable configuration source at position 1

Dec 10 06:29:44 localhost gconfd (jeff-2340): Resolved address "xml:readonly:/etc/gconf/gconf.xml.defaults" to a read-only configuration source at position 2

Dec 10 06:29:46 localhost gconfd (jeff-2340): Resolved address "xml:readwrite:/home/jeff/.gconf" to a writable configuration source at position 0

I don't see anything that stands out to me. The only thing i can think of is with the messages for agpgart maybe it is having trouble with the LCD monitor? On a positive note my friend found out that the cat likes to play with the extension cord he has his computer plugged into and loosed it up enough and that was why it was shutting down because it would loosen enough to not be plugged in. Thanks for your help. Im going to try to install Im_sensors right now.