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So my computer has lately started freezing completely when I run some programs that, in the past, would work great.

What I am unsure about however, is what logs that are available to me that could help me track down the issue after a reboot?

Thanks

Seth
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Industrial
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3 Answers3

40

Check the content of:

/your/editor /var/log/syslog

If you are running Gnome, then you can check the logs using the gnome-system-log tool (perhaps need to install with sudo apt install gnome-system-log):

gnome-system-log

You can select the syslog in the left-hand side.

If you want to check the logs as they are getting produced:

tail -f /var/log/syslog

(Not useful after crash, though, as it shows only the last few lines before following new ones)

Eric Platon
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Rajesh Pantula
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16

If the whole machine is locking up, off the top of my head, these are the likely causes:

  • Overheating. You don't need logs to determine this, but fingers :)
  • GPU lockup. Is it an OpenGL (3D) application, and you don't normally run those? While locked up you should be able to ssh into it from another machine.
  • Thrashing. Does the hard drive light go on steadily when it locks up? Something is using too much RAM.
  • Other hardware problem. Run a memtest and/or another OS...
tumbleweed
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9

"my computer has lately started freezing completely when I run some programs"

What are those programs? The answer to your question is heavily depend on those "some programs" Anyway, check

/var/log/syslog

/var/log/kern.log Optionally you can use dmesg command to view kernel messages to check if something is wrong during boot process.

nobody
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