[Techtalk] Determining Hardware Or Software Problem

[Rudy Zijlstra]

Wendy Mores wrote:

>On 10/15/05, Kylie Willison <kmw at bridgeonline.com.au> wrote:
>  
>
>><snip>
>>Fresh Ubuntu (hoary) install worked fine for about 3 or 4
>>months on a secondhand computer. Now according to the owner
>>it's freezing after login then reboots. Even turned itself
>>on in the middle of the night once. Yet I've been able to
>>boot and login fine. So far I've only tried it once.
>>
>>    
>>
>
>
>I've seen this kind of thing happen quite a few times in the past and most
>of the time that it was due to overheating. I would suggest checking the
>fans on the power supply and processor to see if they are functioning
>correctly and then check for overheating of the cards. Once I had a computer
>that would lock up all the time about 30 seconds after boot and then it
>would restart itself. All the hardware was ok and it turned out to be an
>overheated video card that was sandwiched between too closely to a pci
>network card. Dodgy memory can cause freezes too, but freeze and reboot is
>often heat related.
>
>That's not to say that it couldn't be software, but if all configuration is
>the same and it worked before, I would start by looking at the hardware.
>
>  
>
Another thing to check is the PSU. I have had very unstable behaviour 
because of a broken powersupply...
System would boot, and after unpredictable time switch off again. 
replacing the PSU solved this.

Cheers,

Rudy