[scottish] Random lockups! Hardware Diagnostics?

[B C Kupris]

Harry F Doherty wrote:

>Hi
>
>I've been having random lockups on my machine - no response to keyboard
>or mouse. This has happen both mid X session and when trying to log on
>a tty.
>
>I assume this is a hardware problem?
>All my hardware is pretty suspect as I found it in bins.
>I think I've ruled out memory (memtest) and power supply (multimeter).
>ide-smart on both my hard drives gives "passed" on all lines.
>I'm not sure what to make of my smartctl -i output (listings below).
>So I'm not completely satisfied I've ruled out a hard drive/ide
>problem.
>
>So where do I go from here?
>I need to check my logs, but where and what?
>I'm using debian testing with kernel 2.2.20.
>Do I need a new mobo?
>
>Thanks for your patience and proleptic gratitude for any assistance.
>I'd better go and back up my dog faced hermans mp3s before this thing
>blows up.
>
>cheers
>Harry.
>  
>

My machine started locking up seemingly randomly yestarday evening, I 
opened her up and checked the CPU heatsink, completely blocked with 
dust. The GPU heatsink was just as bad and I think it was probably the 
graphics card which was crashing the system crashed only after X 
started. Gave them a good clean and problem solved. I wonder how many 
people have "broken" pcs which are just in need of some tlc.

ck