CRASH, but why?

[berb]

I had a crash last night, I think it was my first, but I cannot figure out why. There is no core dump and a quick look at /var/log/messages comes up with this:
Feb 7 03:56:20 toto --MARK--
Feb 7 04:16:20 toto --MARK--


...and so on every 20 minutes until
Feb 7 05:56:20 toto --MARK--

When I woke up this morning I was at LILO boot screen and on startup the checking of the linux partition was forced. I know it wasn't a power outage.
I have no idea what generated this.
Any ideas on where to look or what caused the crash?
I'm running slack 7.1.
:cool:

edit - typo

[ 07 February 2001: Message edited by: berb ]

[freaker]

You say it wasn't a power outtage, but might have been a brown out... Kinda like a power surge.. Dont get them in my area, but I do tesch support in all areas of the US, and they happen more than you would think..
Best bet is to get a Battery Backup, that has the surge protection built in, that will stop these from happening..
Another reason could possibly be a bad or "getting" bad power supply. They tend to reboot the PC for no reason and at any time. I would say this only if it happens often.
Hope this helps

freaker :cool:

[berb]

seems like a power thing after all. the puter sitting right next to this one was fine, but the cable was out and the vcr off. strange :eek:

[Cobol_Stephy]

I've had my computer reset itself when the lights flicker. Everything else will be fine. The clocks will read the right time, the CD player keeps playing. Computers just seem to be more picky about power then other things.

[prince_kenshi]

It all depends on the capacitance of the device. I would think that a computer would have higher capacity than a clock or vcr, but apparently this isn't always the case. I don't think my Pentium 2 with a power supply from a 386 was very bad about resetting when the power blinked, but now I have a new one and haven't had time to find out about it yet. A low capacity UPS will help against these brownouts. I really wish I had one myself.