New SYS, unstable issues - where to turn? (resolved)

[Cuddles]

This is a "cross-post" from the HARDWARE forum, since the modem is not the issue now, the new system is...

[included post]
Its going back to the store... I spent $40 more than a standard "winmodem" with the promise that this was a "standard" modem. So, tomorrow its going back, and this time an external serial modem is taking its place.

BTW - since installing 3.3, i've started to get crashes, Crash Guard within KDE yells about something causing a crash, and that "something" is sending "signals" to software to have them shutdown - first time is was lib[something]c++ - and all I was doing was viewing the KMenu - nothing running. The next time I was playing Penguin Solitaire, and some service sent a sigsys[something] that signals software/services to abort.

I since blew away 3.3, and went back to 3.2 - but that too is having similar problems. I can be logged in as Root, do anything, or nothing, and the system goes to black screen and causes the user to be logged out, and the LOGIN screen appears - = - I think my new system has some serious problems. Either processor, memory, hard drive, or installed OS issues. Could be on-motherboard issues, or even the motherboard itself....

Oh well, so much for a nice start of the year...


Anyone have any clues as to what could be causing this? I sat and watched the install of 3.3, and many times cloop would report that it was unable to uncompress the files during the "copying files" - on the last, 3.2 install, I watched the "copy" and nothing came across bad, but the same CD did require doing the HDInstall twice, before it read without copy problems. The CD-ROM shows "mild" marks on it, but, the errors in copy are not consistantly happening, either in the same place, or all the time. I am seriously wondering that I have purchased a $600 lemon system.

Any help is EXTREMELY helpful, since I have an unstable system, and dont know where to turn for resolve. i.e. taking it back to the store, where do I start????
Thanks,
Cuddles

[Cuddles]

Just got another one of those errors: [different program/service, but same problem]

KDE Panel - The KDE Crash Handler
Short Description
The application KDE Panel (kicker) crashed and caused the signal 11 (SIGSEGV)
What is this?
An application mostly receives the SIGSEGV signal due to a bug in the application. The application was asked to save its documents.
What can I do?
You might want to send a bug report to the author...

This is almost happening on ANY application, and without reason.

Help...
Cuddles

[rickenbacherus]

Post specific hardware details.

[windos_no_thanks]

Running memtest86 overnight is a good idea when you suspect
memory problems. Get it here:
http://www.memtest86.com/

[Cuddles]

Thanks to both Windos_No_Thanks and Rickenbacherus, it was memory. The store put in miss-matched memory to get me going, and when I took the puter back, he just popped out the "flacky" chips - he has matched chips on order, but thought this could tied me over till then...

AND -=- I got me a external HARDWARE modem, tied right off my serial port - ran perfectly the first time, I pointed KPPP over to ttyS0 and it worked perfectly - so I did a ln -sf /dev/ttyS0 /dev/modem -=- and now I am ONLINE with my new system and my new modem ! ! ! ! ! ! !

[Cuddles is doin the HAPPY DANCE

Thanks again you too, I am so happy - I am probably going to leave Knoppix 3.2 on the system for a few days, beat the system, and then do a fresh install of Knoppix 3.3 I AM SO HAPPY !

Cuddles