Systems failure on PC

Jolly_Roger

I run a Suse Linux PC. Something odd happened to me twice today. I was using the word processing programme when the entire system shut down, requiring a re-boot. It was a total crash, which had never happened before. I haven't added any new software.
Question: on balance, is this a hardware problem or a software problem?

gaming_guy

It could be any combination of things.

hint: check /var/log/messages and /var/log/syslog to see if they turn up anything (you'll need to open the log files in gedit or similar)

fwor

Having been using various Linux flavours on multiple PCs for around 5 years now I'd hazard a guess that it's more likely hardware than software. I can't remember ever having a Linux system crash like that. By all means check the logs, but if it went down like you say, the chances are it was in no state to write anything to disk.

First things I'd look at would be CPU temperature, PSU voltages, Memtest and whether the HDD passes the manufacturer's diagnostic tests.