[SWLUG] kernel "screen of death"

[Tony Pursell]

On 5 December 2011 12:14, Colin Law <clanlaw at googlemail.com> wrote:

> 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
>
>
Crashes certainly are not unusual for me :-(  I recently upgraded from 1GB
of original HP memory (which I found no fault with in memtest) to 2GB of
Crucial memory (which I haven't memtested yet).  I have got the side panel
off the PC (for no particular reason - I just forgot to put it back when I
put the new memory in) so overheating is probably not a problem.  I'm no
expert, but it could be a problem with the 3D Unity graphics or the open
source Radeon graphics you have to use with 3D Unity.

Anyway, I'm not looking for help to stop the crashes.  I'm more interested
in how I might capture more information to feed the bug I've reported (
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/886706).  I can live
with the crashes, but it does not help the wider promotion of Ubuntu (in
particular) and Linux (in general) if this sort of thing is happening.  I
think there is some information, on how to capture information, later in
this thread.

For me, boot problems are few and far between, so they don't worry me at
the moment.

Tony
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