Strange system lockups - kernel saying disk error

[perryh at pluto.rain.com]

Kaya Saman <kayasaman at gmail.com> wrote:

> I have an ancient pre-HT PIV machine with <500MB RAM.
> ...
> Everything was running fine until round about 2 days
> ago when the system started locking up on me?
>
> ... is there anyway to fix the kernel error quickly?

Did you apply any updates shortly before it started to fail?

If not, this is likely to be a hardware problem.  I'd suggest
checking the power supply and the fans, running memtest86, and
taking a close look at the electrolytic filter capacitors on
the system board -- the last because it sounds as if this system
may be about the right age to have been built with some bad ones.
(If any of the capacitors are bulging, either those caps, or the
entire board, need to be replaced.)  Power and heat problems can
cause all sorts of strange symptoms.