10.04 troubleshoot system freeze

[scar]

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scar @ 02/25/2011 09:49 PM:
> [snip]
> i think i will leave this 'watch -n 10 free' open and see what it looks
> like next time the system freezes.  maybe the system really is running
> out of memory.

well, i'm stumped.  the system doesn't seem to be running out of memory.
 it froze earlier today, and this was the last update of 'free' on the
terminal:

Every 10.0s: free                                Sat Feb 26 16:45:39 2011

             total       used       free     shared    buffers     cached
Mem:       8193780    1877264    6316516          0     198988     836332
- -/+ buffers/cache:     841944    7351836
Swap:      3903480          0    3903480


this is very frustrating and rather serious, since this system is
running our security cameras.

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