Computer Freezes

[jaminellio]

Trying to Install Amahi on an old Dell computer but it keeps freezing at random times usually within about 30 minutes of starting to use it (although a few times a lot longer). So far it has frozen during the install of Ubuntu, while surfing the internet in ubuntu, and during the Amahi install process, while shutting down, and just while it sit there doing nothing.

I thought it might have to do with heat and I took it all apart and have clean out the dust, there was a bit but not the most I have seen in a computer and it behaved the same way afterwards. I have installed windows on the computer and cannot fault it in windows.

Any advice or are there any tools that I could install or logs I could look at on Linux to get to the bottom of the freezes? I have not really used linux over 10 years since my uni days and am very rusty.

Thanks
Ben

[bigfoot65]

Does it meet the minimum requirements for Ubuntu and Amahi? Also it could be a driver issue. Often the older computers do not have good driver support.

[jaminellio]

Thanks Bigfoot65, I had not thought about drivers (not normally something to worry about in a windows environment these days), but the randomness of the freezes has not made me think it is one particular component. I will look look into the components and the drivers and see if that fixes it.

Computer I am using is has a intel core2 cpu with 2gb ram so I had assumed it was upto the Amahi job.

[bigfoot65]

Yea it may very well be the drivers. The hardware should be more than sufficient for a server.

[radioz]

Have you considered hardware problems?

Try a memory test.

Also take a look at the system log to see if there are any errors associated with the crashes.

[jaminellio]

Thanks for the replies.

I have removed a Serial ATA 4 port PCI Card (which I would like to use in the future) which was the only non standard part in the computer. It now appears to freeze a little less often (12-24 hours).
I performed the memory test which passed and using the additional drivers wizards does not show it needs anything else. I have gone through the syslog and cannot find any reason for the crashes, last entry has always been something different before the time gap to the restart. Is there another way I can find out which drivers are incorrect or it might need?

I used to use this computer a year or so ago for an Amahi server with the Fedora backend without issues. Is it an option to go back to Fedora?

[bigfoot65]

Sorry to hear you are having issues. You can use Fedora 14 until for the short term. We are working on Amahi 7 for Fedora 18, expected to be ready some time in January.

[jaminellio]

Thanks Bigfoot65, I will try installing Fedora to see if I have the same issues I am having with Ubuntu. Might be a tough decision whether to hold out until January or start the build earlier with the older version