Tracking Cause of Crash

I'm not an expert on Linux or the Pi, so I'm hoping someone will be patient enough to tell me how to determine what's causing my crashes.

I'm using the latest RaspBMC in a simple use case. I want to use the Pi to feed music to in-room audio, either individual audio files from a server or Pandora. The Pi will feed an amp from it's analog output.

Everything works well, except that while playing the first song, the Pi crashes hard a couple minutes in. The display stops, only the red LED remains on. Connections are wired Ethernet, HDMI to display, and analog audio to an amp (currently zone 2 of receiver). Nothing on the USB.

I read that a questionable power supply can cause random crashes, so I tried the best I had, which is a 5.1v, 2A iPad charger. It lasted a few songs but crashed the same way. There is no air restriction which would cause overheating.

How can I troubleshoot this? With a hard crash, is there any evidence of what happens after the fact, on the next boot?

Thanks for any advice!

I'd try a fixed IP first, my squeezebox behaved the same until I did that, I guess my phone or tablet or something trying to steal the same IP address.

Thanks for your suggestion. I tried a fixed IP (far from those being provided by DHCP), but it crashed just the same.

Any other suggestions?

Is there any way to leave a breadcrumb trail to find this type of crash after a reboot? It doesn't seem to happen at a specific change is use case, like when starting to play a song. It seems to be random, mostly crashing in mid-song. I've also noticed that if it boots and I leave it for a while, it's usually dead when I come back to it. I'm not certain if this is related, because obviously other power management tasks kick in after inactivity.

Any help appreciated.

Ok, I've now loaded wheezy and I'm getting similar results. I crash at various points in the setup. I've tried two 2A power supplies. Where can I look for clues?

Not saying your RPi is the same but definitely worth a read. viewtopic.php?f=28&t=20657

Don't stop reading the thread too soon. It took a while to home in on the problem. But first you need to eliminate the bad power possibility. See http://elinux.org/R-Pi_Troubleshooting# ... r_problems