[SWLUG] kernel "screen of death"

[Colin Law]

On 5 December 2011 11:41, Tony Pursell <ajp at princeswalk.fsnet.co.uk> wrote:
>
>
> On 5 December 2011 11:00, Colin Law <clanlaw at googlemail.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>> On 5 December 2011 08:04, Mark Summerfield <mark at qtrac.eu> wrote:
>> > Hi,
>> >
>> > Twice in the past week my computer has failed to boot first time. Seems
>> > to go wrong when doing USB-related stuff.
>> >
>> > I reset it and so far it has always booted second time. But when I do
>> > dmesg I get the message for the boot I've just done, not the failure
>> > boot, so I can't tell you why it failed! Is it possible to get the
>> > previous boot message?
>>
>> Run the Log File Viewer where you will find, in particular, syslog.
>> You should find the previous records in there.
>>
>>
>
> I don't think you will find any details.  My Ubuntu 10.10 crashes often and
> some times I need two tries to boot it, especially after a crash.
>
> If anyone knows if crash details are kept anywhere, I would love to know so
> I could add details to my bug reports.

Crashes should be very unusual.  Have you tried running memtest
overnight?  Another possibility is that it is overheating.  The fact
that you have noticed that a boot failure is more likely immediately
after a crash may suggest that temperature is a factor.

Colin