On Mon, 19 May 2014, Jason White wrote:
Dave Hellewell <dave.hellewell@gmail.com> wrote:
Loading video is a more or less reliable way to force a crash. However, system load does not appear to be the cause.
I once had hardware problems on a video card that caused the entire system to crash (because the video driver was in the kernel, as is now the norm).
If crashes are becoming more frequent with no change in the installed software, this strongly suggests hardware failures.
Running a modern kernel (>3.10)? I swear they seem so much less reliable on all of my hardware (mostly laptops). One I have when I run a a particular perl script that was making the CPU warm (not hot - only 60degC), and was crashing a few minutes into the job. The machine runs perfectly happy though when openshot is transcoding a video using all 8 cores and the CPU is running at 95degC. Another laptop tends to last a day or two before the wifi light flashes rapidly mimicking a fast version of the old flashing capslock kernel panic. Wedged so hard not even alt-sysrq b does anything. No idea what's going wrong in any of the cases, other than blaming the one common element between them all - that fscking in-kernel video driver. I feel like I'm using Windows Millenium Edition all of a sudden. -- Tim Connors