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I did a fresh install of Ubuntu 16.04 a few days ago after receiving my laptop from a major hardware repair. Unfortunately, it crashes often (a few times daily), and I cannot discern a pattern as to what might be the cause. The first few times it was when running unison and synchronizing files, but last time it crashed when it was streaming music and not being 'actively used'.

Raising the pink elephant (alt+sysreq+ R, E, I, S, U, B) does not help and also not cause the system to reboot.

The crashes usually cause visual artefacts on the screen; see screenshot: enter image description here

Does someone know, where I could look to find the cause?

I've looked in /var/log/syslog, but I'm not sure what I'm looking for.

ElRudi
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    I would begin by checking RAM as outlined here: http://askubuntu.com/questions/591488/how-do-i-run-memtest86/591502 and follow up by checking the SMART status of the drive(s) in use as outlined here: http://askubuntu.com/questions/528072/how-can-i-check-the-smart-status-of-a-drive-on-ubuntu-14-04-through-16-04 – Elder Geek Aug 21 '16 at 16:02
  • Thanks for the suggestions. Here are the results: Smart status is OK. Memtest took me a while - it's not present in grub due to EFI, I had to make a bootable usb for memtest 4 - and it runs for about an hour without errors before the screen mysteriously turns black and the keyboard backlight starts blinking... Running it for a second time now. – ElRudi Aug 21 '16 at 20:16
  • Using memtest 7 (for EFI) I found many errors in RAM. Many thanks for the help! Off it goes, straight back to where it came from: Lenovo repair service. I can't help but wonder what it is they do in that place. – ElRudi Aug 22 '16 at 21:08
  • I'm glad you got it sorted out. I converted the comment to an answer in the hopes that others with the same issue will be able to find it. – Elder Geek Aug 22 '16 at 21:47

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Rule out drive issues by check Smart status of the drive(s) as outlined on this page

Run memtest86 to rule out memory errors as described here. If you have an EFI system you'll want V5 or later which support EFI boot. The latest version is available here

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Elder Geek
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