[Novalug] need help: server freezing / locking up

[American Dave]

On Sat, Oct 24, 2009 at 04:32:07PM -0400, Richard Ertel wrote:
> note: i really don't like how ubuntu freezes the whole machine when it
> (apparently) encounters bad blocks or something when building a raid
> array on non-system drives. surely this is the kind of thing that
> would ideally be avoided?

Ubuntu, and by extension Linux will not freeze on bad blocks on devices
so long as nothing critical is needed on those bad blocks.  I know
you've got a mega 600W power supply and all, but I still suspect it, and
would suggest checking system memory thoroughly.

All symptoms point to hardware or heat.  Yank the cover on the computer
and rebuild the array, check the heat of the cpus and other components
with fans after a crash, and double-check your logs for interrupt errors.

Motherboards often will tell you the temperature of the CPU's in the
BIOS.  Restart immediately after a crash and check that.
-A. Dave