FC8 Kernel Crash, Troubleshooting?

[David Timms]

Edward DeMeulle wrote:
> My system (straight fc8 install, not an upgrade) has crashed several 
> times, usually about once a week or week and a half. The only 
> information I have is what was left on the screen (took photo but can't 
> send attachment to this list). It doesn't appear that the system has a 
> chance to log anything in /var/log. I assume that this is a kernel panic 
> however I haven't had to deal with this sort of issue before. Where 
> should I start to try to ascertain the cause?
Yuk, a rare error is hard to find.
Is the machine on continually before it gets to that stage ?
Do you log out/in each day ?
Any programs runnning continually ?
Are any particular programs running when it goes wrong ?
Is it in active use ?
Are you using ati/nvidia closed source drivers ?

Using a serial console to send the log/error message to usually works. A 
second PC with a serial port and a serial crossover cable {null modem 
cable} is what's required. minicom can log the data output by the 
problematic machine. If you have access to a second monitoring PC, ask 
here how.

Some good pointers:
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/KernelCommonProblems#head-aacc422f26396dee978174e105c6a2b8ed962971

DaveT.