Thanks Dave. 1) The problem appears to be independant of the kernel version, as I've had it occur on a 2.6.10 and 2.6.12 kernel.
2) How might I check for flakey hardware? 3) I have had my BIOS respond after 3 crashes that the computer crashed due to excessive heat. I think that this maybe independant of the problem as well, because I haven't had this BIOS message in conjunction with a crash for several months. I've also had a crash occur when I flipped my laptop upside-down and placed an ice pack over the portion that produced the most heat (don't worry, I placed a plastic baggie over the computer hardware to help to protect from condensation, though I don't think that condensed moisture from the air would be able to conduct enough electricity to produce a short). 4) The only rare hardware that I have is a Broadcom wireless card, for which I use ndiswrapper to load a module into the kernel. The problem is independant of this, as well, because I have had the same crash without the module loaded. 5) I have not yet ensured that the kernel config matches the hardware 100%, though I feel 90% confident in the kernel config that I've custom made for this box. 6) I apologize, but as a college student, I'm often away from my computer, find that my computer has crashed, but have no method of determining how long my computer has been sitting since it last crashed. I am now at the point that I only turn it on when I need it, once a day, and so it crashes only once a day. As for the lock up itself, it is a total lockup, without a powerdown. I apologize for not providing enough information, but that is because I myself didn't have enough information (hence the "Need more info" in my subject). As you may have read from my previous posts, the purpose of my writing was not so much to solve the kernel crash (though that is certainly the ultimate goal) but rather to figure out how to recover data about this crash on a subsequent boot. Perhaps I should have made my subject clearer by writing something along the lines of "How to trace a kernel oops?". I apologize. Once I have this information, we can go ahead and figure out why my kernel keeps crashing. But first, I have to figure out how to trace my kernel's oops message. Without that information, the above answers don't really mean much. If you could please help me to figure out a way to log old kernel messages and find them on subsequent boots, that would be most appreciated. Thanks again for your help Dave. Kris On Saturday 17 September 2005 14:01, Dave Nebinger wrote: > > I've been experiencing some random kernel crashes, and need a way of > > finding > > out what happened. > > Kris, I'd start by answering the following: > > 1. What version of the kernel are you using? Your OP is quite old, and > many releases of the kernel have come out since then. Have you tried a > newer kernel? Does the crashes keep happening regardless of the kernel > version? > > 2. If it doesn't matter about the kernel version, then that would indicate > most likely a hardware failure of some kind. Could be as simple as a > flakey memory module, or some extreme such as a motherboard and/or chipset > issue, some device flaking out, etc. > > 3. Have you looked at crashes due to heat? Is your box cleaned and have > proper airflow? > > 4. Are you running any esoteric or rare hardware components in the box? > > 5. Have you ensured that your kernel config matches the hardware? In some > cases the selection of drivers is not as simple as selecting a card vendor, > you sometimes need to get beyond that and know exactly what the device has > installed. > > 6. "random kernel crashes" really doesn't provide a lot of info. How > frequently does it occur? Every other month or every 3 minutes? What > happens to the box, a total lockup, a powerdown, etc.? -- [email protected] mailing list
