[CentOS] Machine all of a suddens freezes. Any suggestions?

[Mike Fedyk]

Theo Band wrote:
> What would be the best approach to debug this problem? What can be the 
> most likely cause? Or should I just accept it (it's a single user 
> desktop machine). The machine has FC4 installed. Is there a chance that 
> it becomes more stable with Centos (as said, I actually  don't suspect 
> the OS). For new machines I started installing Centos (and I'm happy 
> with it, especially the fact that my EDA software vendors support it well).
> I monitor the machine with Zabbix, but no weird things there. Just 
> before the freeze the machine had a processor load of 1 running a user 
> simulation.

Turn on nmi_watchdog:
http://www.mjmwired.net/kernel/Documentation/nmi_watchdog.txt#34

run memtest86+ for 24 to 48 hours.

Stress your disks:
for i in $(seq -w 20); do cp -ax / /tmp/$i & done

(Be sure to stop the 20 cp processes before your disk(s) fill up)

Mike