Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id ; Mon, 9 Jul 2001 10:25:27 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id ; Mon, 9 Jul 2001 10:25:17 -0400 Received: from muedi6-212-144-153-063.arcor-ip.net ([212.144.153.63]:20465 "EHLO merv") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id ; Mon, 9 Jul 2001 10:24:57 -0400 Date: Mon, 9 Jul 2001 16:24:51 +0200 To: Ronald Bultje Cc: Linux Kernel Mailing List Subject: Re: >128 MB RAM stability problems (again) Message-ID: <20010709162451.A2187@bombe.modem.informatik.tu-muenchen.de> Reply-To: Andreas Bombe Mail-Followup-To: Ronald Bultje , Linux Kernel Mailing List Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <994442162.1047.0.camel@tux> User-Agent: Mutt/1.3.18i From: Andreas Bombe Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org On Fri, Jul 06, 2001 at 07:55:50PM +0200, Ronald Bultje wrote: > So, basically, my bios must have loaded the wrong options for my memory > which must run above it's limits which causes data corruption... Then, > my stupid question, why doesn't memtest86 detect that? Because it's a memory tester and not real work load. It tries special access patterns to find hard memory errors (i.e. memory cells that are damaged). Timing and configuration errors are harder to find. For one thing, these might depend on temperature, and memtest86 won't stress the CPU into generating as much heat as real work will do. > Anyway, I'll go look at the bios settings of the computers, look at the > CAS/RAS/clock timing settings like two people suggested (thanks :-) ) > and hope to be happy and have a stable machine after that. According to your posts, you are using no-name SDRAMs, and two different ones. I have already posted that, their configuration data is often incomplete or just erronous and the BIOS will be confused or has just errors itself (like configuring all SDRAMs to the values of the first one). The German computer magazine c't has some time ago bought no-name and branded SDRAMs and tested them extensively (checked config ROM data, put them in a lended $500000 memory tester). Results were that no-names were on average pretty crappy. The branded ones weren't perfect, but much better. A month after that article pretty much every computer store here had brand SDRAMs in addition to the cheap no-name stuff. If you can get hold of the timing values for your RAM (might be hard with no-name, use conservative values otherwise) then it's better to set these directly instead of letting the BIOS go around playing with that stuff. >From what I've read, some manufacturers even simply gave up on autodetection, left it out of the BIOS and require the user to configure it themselves if they want some performance. -- Andreas E. Bombe DSA key 0x04880A44 - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/