Query cache appears to be fine. I at least don't see anything out of the ordinary.
Here are some of my stats for yesterday before the crash:
MyTOP
MySQL on localhost (4.1.21-standard) up 0+05:50:55 [13:19:15]
Queries: 1.3M qps: 63 Slow: 12.0 Se/In/Up/De(%): 55/22/04/01
qps now: 49 Slow qps: 0.0 Threads: 4 ( 1/ 18) 53/02/07/01
Cache Hits: 237.2k Hits/s: 11.5 Hits now: 13.0 Ratio: 33.4% Ratio now: 49.6%
Key Efficiency: 99.9% Bps in/out: 18.9k/139.2k Now in/out: 18.4k/405.9k
Id User Host/IP DB Time Cmd Query or State
-- ---- ------- -- ---- --- ----------
19321 root localhost simplsec_s 0 Query show full processlist
64718 highalti_ localhost highalti_f 1 Sleep
64647 simplsec localhost simplsec_s 13 Sleep
64560 simplsec localhost simplsec_s 38 Sleep
Extended stats
Tue Nov 14 13:19:58 MST 2006
top - 13:19:58 up 14 days, 9:48, 1 user, load average: 4.26, 5.41, 4.73
Tasks: 141 total, 3 running, 138 sleeping, 0 stopped, 0 zombie
Cpu(s): 25.4% us, 2.5% sy, 0.3% ni, 69.5% id, 2.3% wa, 0.0% hi, 0.0% si
Mem: 4090528k total, 3382732k used, 707796k free, 63676k buffers
Swap: 2048276k total, 144k used, 2048132k free, 2622124k cached
PID USER PR NI VIRT RES SHR S %CPU %MEM TIME+ COMMAND
6685 nobody 25 0 47188 38m 5060 R 99.2 1.0 0:18.20 httpd
6724 nobody 18 0 49256 40m 5124 R 75.9 1.0 0:00.73 httpd
6778 nobody 15 0 2516 884 672 R 3.9 0.0 0:00.03 top
Http processes currently running = 38
Mysql processes currently running = 4
Netstat information summary
1 LAST_ACK
1 7 FIN_WAIT1
1 9 FIN_WAIT1
1 9 TIME_WAIT
1 99 FIN_WAIT2
1 :3516 ESTABLISHED
1 :3631 ESTABLISHED
2 2 TIME_WAIT
2 3 TIME_WAIT
2 5 TIME_WAIT
2 6 TIME_WAIT
2 7 FIN_WAIT2
2 7 TIME_WAIT
2 8 FIN_WAIT2
3 FIN_WAIT1
3 8 TIME_WAIT
4 1 TIME_WAIT
4 4 TIME_WAIT
5 0 TIME_WAIT
8 ESTABLISHED
8 FIN_WAIT2
48 LISTEN
262 TIME_WAIT
+----------------------------+------------+
| Variable_name | Value |
+----------------------------+------------+
| Aborted_clients | 24 |
| Aborted_connects | 40 |
| Binlog_cache_disk_use | 0 |
| Binlog_cache_use | 0 |
| Bytes_received | 407665036 |
| Bytes_sent | 3025375424 |
| Com_admin_commands | 0 |
| Com_alter_db | 0 |
| Com_alter_table | 0 |
| Com_analyze | 0 |
| Com_backup_table | 0 |
| Com_begin | 0 |
| Com_change_db | 168625 |
| Com_change_master | 0 |
| Com_check | 0 |
| Com_checksum | 0 |
| Com_commit | 0 |
| Com_create_db | 0 |
| Com_create_function | 0 |
| Com_create_index | 0 |
| Com_create_table | 2 |
| Com_dealloc_sql | 0 |
| Com_delete | 13651 |
| Com_delete_multi | 0 |
| Com_do | 0 |
| Com_drop_db | 0 |
| Com_drop_function | 0 |
| Com_drop_index | 0 |
| Com_drop_table | 0 |
| Com_drop_user | 0 |
| Com_execute_sql | 0 |
| Com_flush | 350 |
| Com_grant | 0 |
| Com_ha_close | 0 |
| Com_ha_open | 0 |
| Com_ha_read | 0 |
| Com_help | 0 |
| Com_insert | 288510 |
| Com_insert_select | 0 |
| Com_kill | 0 |
| Com_load | 0 |
| Com_load_master_data | 0 |
| Com_load_master_table | 0 |
| Com_lock_tables | 0 |
| Com_optimize | 1 |
| Com_preload_keys | 0 |
| Com_prepare_sql | 0 |
| Com_purge | 0 |
| Com_purge_before_date | 0 |
| Com_rename_table | 0 |
| Com_repair | 0 |
| Com_replace | 5563 |
| Com_replace_select | 0 |
| Com_reset | 0 |
| Com_restore_table | 0 |
| Com_revoke | 0 |
| Com_revoke_all | 0 |
| Com_rollback | 0 |
| Com_savepoint | 0 |
| Com_select | 485618 |
| Com_set_option | 6993 |
| Com_show_binlog_events | 0 |
| Com_show_binlogs | 3 |
| Com_show_charsets | 45 |
| Com_show_collations | 45 |
| Com_show_column_types | 0 |
| Com_show_create_db | 0 |
| Com_show_create_table | 5 |
| Com_show_databases | 180 |
| Com_show_errors | 0 |
| Com_show_fields | 14 |
| Com_show_grants | 28 |
| Com_show_innodb_status | 0 |
| Com_show_keys | 4 |
| Com_show_logs | 0 |
| Com_show_master_status | 0 |
| Com_show_ndb_status | 0 |
| Com_show_new_master | 0 |
| Com_show_open_tables | 0 |
| Com_show_privileges | 0 |
| Com_show_processlist | 3928 |
| Com_show_slave_hosts | 0 |
| Com_show_slave_status | 0 |
| Com_show_status | 3881 |
| Com_show_storage_engines | 0 |
| Com_show_tables | 453 |
| Com_show_variables | 133 |
| Com_show_warnings | 0 |
| Com_slave_start | 0 |
| Com_slave_stop | 0 |
| Com_stmt_close | 0 |
| Com_stmt_execute | 0 |
| Com_stmt_prepare | 0 |
| Com_stmt_reset | 0 |
| Com_stmt_send_long_data | 0 |
| Com_truncate | 0 |
| Com_unlock_tables | 0 |
| Com_update | 47712 |
| Com_update_multi | 0 |
| Connections | 64892 |
| Created_tmp_disk_tables | 542 |
| Created_tmp_files | 2 |
| Created_tmp_tables | 4748 |
| Delayed_errors | 0 |
| Delayed_insert_threads | 0 |
| Delayed_writes | 0 |
| Flush_commands | 1 |
| Handler_commit | 0 |
| Handler_delete | 3633 |
| Handler_discover | 0 |
| Handler_read_first | 43540 |
| Handler_read_key | 46827932 |
| Handler_read_next | 65994662 |
| Handler_read_prev | 25811719 |
| Handler_read_rnd | 3954986 |
| Handler_read_rnd_next | 40123227 |
| Handler_rollback | 0 |
| Handler_update | 4193113 |
| Handler_write | 4223512 |
| Key_blocks_not_flushed | 0 |
| Key_blocks_unused | 342632 |
| Key_blocks_used | 121288 |
| Key_read_requests | 214016490 |
| Key_reads | 121742 |
| Key_write_requests | 1007842 |
| Key_writes | 946950 |
| Max_used_connections | 22 |
| Not_flushed_delayed_rows | 0 |
| Open_files | 933 |
| Open_streams | 0 |
| Open_tables | 517 | 13% of table_cache in use
| Opened_tables | 524 |
| Qcache_free_blocks | 3006 |
| Qcache_free_memory | 36917488 |
| Qcache_hits | 243476 |
| Qcache_inserts | 443109 |
| Qcache_lowmem_prunes | 0 |
| Qcache_not_cached | 42491 |
| Qcache_queries_in_cache | 5873 |
| Qcache_total_blocks | 15633 |
| Questions | 1334242 |
| Rpl_status | NULL |
| Select_full_join | 34 |
| Select_full_range_join | 1 |
| Select_range | 32313 |
| Select_range_check | 0 |
| Select_scan | 20962 |
| Slave_open_temp_tables | 0 |
| Slave_retried_transactions | 0 |
| Slave_running | OFF |
| Slow_launch_threads | 0 |
| Slow_queries | 12 | (execution time > 10 secs)
| Sort_merge_passes | 1 |
| Sort_range | 17937 |
| Sort_rows | 1395272 |
| Sort_scan | 5358 |
| Table_locks_immediate | 948697 |
| Table_locks_waited | 491 |
| Threads_cached | 19 |
| Threads_connected | 3 |
| Threads_created | 22 |
| Threads_running | 1 |
| Uptime | 21099 | 5 hrs 51 mins 39 secs
+----------------------------+------------+
Key Reads/Key Read Requests = 0.000569 (Cache hit = 99.999431%)
Key Writes/Key Write Requests = 0.939582
Connections/second = 3.076 (/hour = 11072.146)
KB received/second = 18.869 (/hour = 67927.200)
KB sent/second = 99.396 (/hour = 357824.712)
Temporary Tables Created/second = 0.225 (/hour = 810.124)
Opened Tables/second = 0.025 (/hour = 89.407)
Slow Queries/second = 0.001 (/hour = 2.047)
% of slow queries = 0.001%
Queries/second = 63.237 (/hour = 227653.974)
MySQL Query Cache hits = 243476/729076(33%)
my.cnf
[mysqld]
skip-locking
skip-innodb
query_cache_size=64M
query_cache_type=1
max_connections=4000
interactive_timeout=100
wait_timeout=100
connect_timeout=10
thread_cache_size=128
key_buffer=512M
join_buffer=16M
max_allowed_packet=16M
table_cache=4096
record_buffer=1M
sort_buffer_size=4M
read_buffer_size=2M
max_connect_errors=10
thread_concurrency=4
myisam_sort_buffer_size=64M
server-id=1
[mysql.server]
user=mysql
basedir=/var/lib
old-passwords = 1
[safe_mysqld]
err-log=/var/log/mysqld.log
open_files_limit=8192
[mysqldump]
quick
max_allowed_packet=16M
[mysql]
no-auto-rehash
[isamchk]
key_buffer=64M
sort_buffer=64M
read_buffer=16M
write_buffer=16M
[myisamchk]
key_buffer=64M
sort_buffer=64M
read_buffer=16M
write_buffer=16M
[mysqlhotcopy]
interactive-timeout
It is really hard to say without looking into your server. But make sure your query cache is working. Did you check the log files to see who is exahusting all MySQL concurrent connections? It also might be a cronjob running at that time by one of your clients killing MySQL.