unexpected reboot

[Jay Daniels]

On Tue, 2009-09-01 at 19:27 -0400, Brian McKee wrote:
> On Tue, Sep 1, 2009 at 1:11 PM, Etienne<etienne at gnulinux.fr> wrote:
> > I am trying to manage an ubuntu server (8.04 LTS) and I just had an
> > unexpected reboot at 11:04 am this morning.
> > I am wondering why .
> > here is the syslog before / after reboot. It does not say anything.
> 
> May be hardware related - I'd suspect power supply, overheating or RAM
> if it's hardware.
> Also, depending on the unit, there were lots of motherboards made with
> bad capacitors - take a look at them for bulged tops.
> 
> Can you pull it out of service long enough to run a memtest on it? and
> watch the temps while you do so?
> 
> Brian
> 

I wonder is this a dell box?  Had the same problem with a preinstalled
version of Ubuntu with a dell desktop.  The problem was nothing to do
with Ubuntu and tech support never solved the random reboot issues which
also occurred after installing XP.  Sold the box dirt cheap to get rid
of it.

Suspect bad ram or cpu, if not overheating or possibly video card/driver
problems.

To date, I have yet to see memtest find a bad module.  It even passed on
a known bad stick.



jay