I've got an old computer running Ubuntu Server 10.04, which acts as router, file server and web server. A couple of weeks ago I inserted a PCIe video card, since the motherboard did not have any video outputs. Since then, I now occasionally get IO and bus errors. When this happens, most binaries such as sudo, vim, or cat, typically results in the error message I/O error. Listing most directories works, but ls / gives Bus error. Everything starts to work again if I perform a hard reset of the computer.
The disk, which is less than a half year old, is not a part of any RAID system. The server is not heavy loaded and has a Core 2 Duo CPU and 4 GB RAM.
I suspect that this may be a hardware issue. However, is there any way to know which hardware to suspect? The hard drive, the motherboard, or something else?
It's the hardware. It doesn't matter what it is, just replace the whole thing; the cost of the time spent diagnosing it will exceed that of the cost of replacing it.