FC3 continually hanging or crashing machine. . OK when X not running. OK in FC2

[Clive at Rational]

Hi,

   I am running FC2 and FC3 on a no-name laptop (2.8
Ghz 512Mb). FC3 is a very up-to-date kernel - about
2.6.11 I think.

   Now when the machine runs FC3 in a command-line
mode it seems very stable and services Samba clients
well. When I start X, the machine hangs within
minutes. It is no longer possible to ping the machine,
no longer possible to telnet to it - it just "locks
up".

   The only way to recover the machine is a power off
and power on - I get lots of horrible inode and
directory error messages when fsck is run. I do not
have the technical knowledge to know where to find the
relevant log files that might show what happened just
before the failure. If you can tell me where to look,
I can post more diagnostic info.

   When the machine runs an FC2 kernel (2.6.7 ?) the
machine seems stable for days, running either command
line or with X active. I am going to run some more
tests on FC2. Can someone tell me what extra
diagnostics I need to collect to help in tracking down
this problem?

Thanks

Clive