Debian crashing

[Jeremy]

>Running memory intensive programs is a pretty good way to test memory. A tech

>I used to work with swore by installing M$ windows. He reckoned that if there

>was the slightest problem with your hardware, windows would find it ;) It 

>worked pretty well actually. I tried it a few times on slightly suspect 
>machines and hey presto - crashes. Bit slow and cumbersome though...

Compiling the Linux kernel (the-kernel-which-is-Linux, I've been reading too
much RMS lately :) is the traditional linux way to test the stability of the
computer.  I had one that would work almost fine but crash when playing movies
or compiling the kernel.  Had to down-clock it.