files filled with \0 after freeze

[Gaspar Bakos]

Hello

My T40 IBM Thinkpad laptop is running FC3 on XFS filesystem. It used to
be rock-solid, but recently, then and now it 'freezes' (maybe once a
week). There is absolutely no sign in var/log/messages after boot-in on
the cause of the freeze, which is sudden. There is also no correlation
between what I do, how heavy the use, etc. AND the freeze.
The only way back is hard-reset.

I am trying to figure our what is causing it:
hardware error? If yes, harddrive or memory?

One clue; some of the last files that were open before the freeze will
contain only \0 characters.

E.g.

bash$ od -c .lastfile
0000000  \0  \0  \0  \0  \0  \0  \0  \0  \0  \0  \0  \0  \0  \0  \0  \0
*
0010740  \0  \0  \0  \0  \0  \0  \0  \0  \0
0010751

This is quite annoying as you may imagine.

Cheers
Gaspar