[linux-audio-user] Re: to the guy with Gentoo and random reboots

[Eric Dantan Rzewnicki]

On Wed, May 12, 2004 at 02:57:59PM -0700, Aaron Trumm wrote:
> that'd be me - I ran memtest for quite some time and didn't get any kind
> of - anything.  I don't know what to look for I guess, but I was thinking
> I'd see some errors in the error column - yes?  but no
> but I have to say, I don't think I've had any random reboots since I
> switched to a 2.6 kernel....hmmm

I used memtest86 recently and definitely saw errors. There was an error
count in the error count column. In the main lower portion of the screen a
scrolling buffer showed the addresses of the bad RAM in hex and MB along
with the pattern expected and the pattern read and which bits of the
address had the errors.

When I removed modules and re-ran the test I was able to figure out
which stick was bad. When it wasn't in the box there were no errors,
when it was in a different slot the addresses of the errors changed in
accordance with the size of the sticks (3x512MB). i.e. at first the
errors were at around 109MB while the faulty module was in the first
slot and later when it was in the third slot the errors were around
1133MB (109+1024).

You would definitely know if it had found something. If you leave it
running it loops through the tests continuously, but as far as I could
tell it kept a running total of errors for all passes.

Did you run the extended tests? These are tests 8-12 (i think ? ...) and
take many hours. The docs say there is a very low probability of these
finding problems the standard set doesn't find. For me they didn't tell
me anything I didn't already know, they just found more errors on the
same module. So, maybe there is a small chance those would find
something more for you. <shrug>


Regarding differnt memory speeds, that was one test I wanted to run.
But, I haven't had time, yet. I'm wondering if Asus lied when they said
this board could handle 1.5GB of PC2700 or if crucial might have
mislabled a PC2100 module as PC2700 or something. My thought was to put
the bad one back in and set the RAM speed lower in the BIOS and run the
tests again. 

-Eric Rz.