[WBEL-users] Panic halts in Kernel

[david]

Folks

Within the past few weeks, I've been experiencing what I think are panic 
halts on my Whitebox Linux 4 machine. (Kernel 2.6.9-23.0.EL) with all 
published YUM updates in place.

My system acts as the gateway between my internal network of machines, and 
the cable modem.  It performs NAT functions, serves as my mail and web 
server, and provides DNS functions for the inside network.

The symptom I see is that my windows desktops (the inside network) fail to 
get access.  I go to my linux box, turn on the monitor (which is usually 
powered off), and see nothing.  I suspect the failure occurred a while ago, 
and by this time the monitor has timed out and gone blank.  The keyboard 
doesn't do anything; even CTL-ALT-DEL fails.  My only option is the hard 
reset or power cycling.

In the few situations where the failure occurred while I was watching, I've 
seen comments fly by on the screen with words like "spin lock", and 
"interupt ...".

In an attempt to keep my computers working, I modified the Kernel startup 
line to include the option
   panic=10
which (according to specs) should reboot after a Kernel Panic with a 10 
second delay.  It works sometimes, but not always.

I am at a loss to figure out what is wrong, and even what information is 
usable to help diagnose the situation.  The computer is an AMD sempron 
3100+, with 256m memory, and 240 G of hard drive, as one logical volume, 
split between a 160g and 80g IDE HD.  It runs command line functions only; 
X is not installed.  Security Linux is off; I am the only one who uses the 
computer.

If you have any ideas, please let me know what additional information you 
might need to help.

BEWILDERED

David