So Unstable and driving me mad!!

[WipeOut]

My system is driving me nuts.. Its a fresh install of 8.10 with very 
little extra added..

Firefox crashes all the time.. Thunderbird occasionally crashes.. 
Openoffice freezes or wrecks documents.. Printing is a nightmare with 
errors or not printing correctly or at all..

I have used this exactly same hardware for 7.10 and its was fine.. About 
6 months ago I started having issues with Firefox on 7.10 but on 8.10 I 
just seem to have issues all the time..

So the fist thing I would like to do is make sure my hardware is good.. 
Are there any system stress test apps that I can easily run to make sure 
its not a hardware issue??

I hope it is hardware because my faith in Linux is taking a knock and I 
have used it entirely for the last 8 years.. I really hope Linux isn't 
heading the Windows way..

If it not hardware I don't know what my options are other than to try 
another distro but I really don't want to do that..

Anyone go any suggestions?