# FreeBSD crashes on regular basis



## philipz (Feb 17, 2012)

All,

I have a FreeBSD system that is running for several years already without an issue, but since last week it crashes at least daily. The server gets unreachable and a hard reset needs to be done.
Here's some info:

```
FreeBSD j-bur-bsd01.eu.mycompany.com 6.2-RELEASE FreeBSD 6.2-RELEASE #0: Fri Jan 12 11:05:30 UTC 2007     
[email]root@dessler.cse.buffalo.edu[/email]:/usr/obj/usr/src/sys/SMP  i386
```
When looking at the screen after a crash, I see this:

```
Fatal Trap:19 id = 07instruction pointer
```
That doesn't tell me a lot and I'm not very familiar with troubleshooting these kind of issues. Is there a way to start troubleshooting/fixing this issue?

Thanks a lot for any help,

- Phil


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## kpa (Feb 17, 2012)

Could be just about anything including memory gone bad, power supply about to fail, dust in CPU cooler. I would look inside the case first and see if anything looks/smells funny in there.


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## philipz (Feb 17, 2012)

kpa said:
			
		

> Could be just about anything including memory gone bad, power supply about to fail, dust in CPU cooler. I would look inside the case first and see if anything looks/smells funny in there.



Ok thanks for that tip, I didn't know that this pointed to a hardware issue. I noticed at boot that it takes a while before it "sees" the 4th processor, maybe that one is faulty.
I will have someone look at the box (it is at a remote location).


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## kpa (Feb 17, 2012)

No problem. It's the wording "is/has been running for several years already without an issue" that usually hints at a hardware problem, if it was a software level problem it would be solved by a reboot assuming no changes were made to configuration.


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## philipz (Feb 17, 2012)

Ah ok I see - it is a logical conclusion anyway - thanks! Is there no reference somewhere to what 
	
	



```
Fatal Trap:19 id = 07
```
 actually could mean? System has been rebooted a couple of times already but the error reoccurs. Also a view on the system's inside didn't reveal too much.


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## Dies_Irae (Feb 17, 2012)

I (luckily) never experienced this type of error, so my (little) knowledge comes from Google.

Check your RAM with Memtest86+.

It can also be a disk problem: if you search "Fatal trap 19" on Google you will find several posts, and many of them show a line like this:


```
current process         = 0 (swapper)
```

So yes, it's a memory problem, but the culprit could be your old hard disk.

Hope this helps.


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