Basically the rule of thumb is that if it goes down completely for more than 30 minutes then I will shout at my hosting company. I won't bother them for anything less than 30 minutes because chances are by the time I tell them it is back up again. If it does that repeatedly through a period of days then yes I will be jumping up and down, but sometimes it is just because they are restarting their servers.
Keep your DB files and PHP code backed up on a daily routine (login and grab them via FTP), and at least you won't lose anything should the server crash.
It sounds like the system is either overheating or they are changing equipment around.
Yes I have got that error twice today. I went to another phpbb forum and they weren't having problems so I am now bombarding Chris with emails, sorry Chris but I need to figure out what is going on and what I could be doing to stop it happening again.
It probably has nothing to do with this, but for security reasons(for you and for us), it would be better if you upgraded to version 2.0.11 of the phpBB software. I don't know if you can do that or have to let it do, and I know this is a very busy period,but I've been on another forum that has been the victim of some mailcious attacks, and it's very annoying. Everyone reaching the forum got viruses (unless you were protected), and you got redirected to some very nice but more adult-oriented sites.
Bored of normality, why not go smurf? 
