Laptop's freezing: how to find out what the problem is?

Question

Hi all,
First of, I realize that this is not the best forum to ask about hardware
issues, but that's not *exactly* what my question is, please read on!
So, my laptop started freezing at seemingly random times. I understand
that this could be a hardware issue, but I was wondering if there is any
way I can find out something. For instance, I tried to have htop running
constantly so when the laptop froze I checked if any stats where weird,
but there wasn't any problem that I could see.
Any other ideas on how I could possibly get an idea what's wrong?

Answer 1

When it freezes:
Do the keyboard lights flash?
Can you SSH into the box?
Can you ping the box?
Does it unfreeze? Or does it require you shutdown and reboot?
If it unfreezes, was the disk access light on during the freeze?
Is there anything interesting in the logs or journals after your reboot?
Other things you can try:
Blacklist kernel modules of all non-essential hardware and see if that improves stability.
If it does, turn them back on, one at a time.
Is it temperature related? Check both ambient and core temperatures.
Is it susceptible to mechanical shock?
Have you run a memory test?
Does it only freeze when on batteries?