[ubuntu] Troubleshooting hardware problem (kernel panic) using Ubuntu

I have a Lenovo Thinkpad T410 that I used to use as my school computer. I recently dug it out and decided to reinstall Ubuntu 16.04 on it and noticed that my install froze. When it froze, the caps lock key was flashing. After doing some research I found that this means there was a keel panic.

I tried to reinstall several times with varying level of successes. One time I even managed to install completely and use Ubuntu for a day before the freeze happened again. This is obviously faulty hardware and has likely nothing to do with Ubuntu.. I was wondering however, how I could use Ubuntu (live USB) to help debug my hardware problem. I hope to be able to narrow down on the defective piece and replace it. I'm a software engineer with a medium level of Ubuntu/linux familiarity, but very little hardware experience.

Where do I start? Which logs should I read (if any)? What should I be doing to try to narrow this down? Is there a better forum for this kind of help?

Note: I also ran memtest and checked my hard drive (recently replaced) and both pass. I have a suspicion that it could be related to the network card because during each install coecting to the network had varying issues.