Machine stopped and Computer froze

Greetings,

Two events happened yesterday in which the mill was going to position and suddenly it stopped and the LinuxCNC froze. No mouse, no keyboard, etc. Power off and restart was the only option.

First event erased all the G54 offsets. Upon reboot, X,Y,Z,A were all zero after homing.

The second event was similar except that G54 was not erased.

The tool table was not affected.

Running Ubuntu 10.4 with LinuxCNC 2.5.5

Both stoppages occurred during a Z axis move.

I did notice the CPU temperature was 120 degrees F.

Also, the machine was left powered up for four days as I was machining a series of duplicate parts. I can only spend about 3-4 hours per day actually making chips. (I press F2 when not actually machining.)

So, back to the stoppage. I looked at the /var folder trying to find a file describing what failed. No luck as I do not speak computer that well.

The machine has been running great for the past few years.

Any help trouble shooting would be well received.

Cheers,

Dave

Greetings,

Machine froze again yesterday.

Again, during a Z axis move.

No keyboard, mouse, etc. Pulling the 'plug' and it rebooted with no errors during POST.

CPU temperature was 125 degrees F.

I am attaching two 'dmesg' files hoping someone can have a look to see what might be the source of my problem.

It is a Stepper machine that uses GECKO 304 drivers, if this helps.

Cheers,

David

Greetings tommylight,

Thanks for the suggestions. Many I can implement myself.

What is a 'PSU'?

Cheers,

David

Greetings,

Some progress...

I opened the door of the electrical cabinet and directed a small fan into it.

CPU temp went from 125F to 95F. The CPU is the only device that has a sensor.

I also ran the machine for two day without failure!!!

Since the stoppage always occurred during a Z-axis move I now suspect the Gecko card.

What happens when a stepper card fails? Does it lock up the computer?

I plan to buy some heat sink paste and remount the Gecko boards.

Cheers,

Dave

PS The photo attached shows the control cabinet contents.

How is the orientation of this cabinet. Standing on a small side or laying on the big area.
And be carefull sink paste is not very heat conductive. A lot only makes heat transfer only a lot worser.
The small vent on the lower part will not bring out alot of heat.
Do you have some kind of dust problem. If not place a big vent in the middle of the door and have holes leave air good positioned near to mobo and driver..
Mike

Greetings Mike,

The cabinet stands vertical.

I thought about adding some ventilation holes. Need to sort out a way to avoid getting metal chips where they do not belong.

I did converse with Gecko. They said my issue is with either the "motion controller", motherboard, or software.

Thanks to all for your insight.

Cheers,

David