I've been dealing with persistent PC problems all weekend. My filesystems initially started switching to read-only, so I reinstalled the operating system and moved from CachyOS to Fedora. The issue continued until I installed the system on a different drive, which made me suspect that the original SSD is failing. Now applications are also crashing at random. Browsers such as Chromium, Firefox, and LibreWolf usually work briefly before crashing, and Discord and some Steam games have crashed occasionally too. Sometimes only browser tabs close, while other times the entire application exits. What should I check to determine whether this is a storage, memory, or another hardware problem?
3 Answers
Launch the programs from a terminal, for example by running `firefox` or the relevant application command. If the process crashes, the terminal may print useful graphics, library, or segmentation-fault messages. Watching `sudo dmesg -w` in another terminal at the same time can help connect the crash to a disk, memory, GPU, or filesystem error.
Random crashes across multiple browsers, Discord, and games can also point to faulty RAM or a damaged swapfile. Run a full Memtest86 or another bootable memory test rather than relying only on normal system usage. If memory errors appear, test the sticks individually and check that they are seated properly.
A filesystem becoming read-only usually means the kernel detected a storage problem. Since moving the installation to another drive changed the behavior, the original SSD is definitely worth investigating. Check its SMART health data with a tool such as GSmartControl, and look for storage-related errors in the kernel log with `sudo dmesg -w` or by reviewing `dmesg` after a crash.
The crashes are inconsistent: sometimes just browser tabs fail, while other times the whole application closes, and I haven’t found a reliable error message yet.