[gentoo-user] Dodgy hardware?!?!

[gentoo-user] Dodgy hardware?!?!

[Dave Oxley]

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Hi,

I have a MythTV frontend running Gentoo on an AMD 64bit with an Nvidia
6600 graphics card. I have had no end of problems with the graphics card
(Xid errors). It crashes with a white line across the screen regularly
when 3d goom is up when I'm playing music. I've so far been putting it
down to the nvidia driver but I'm beginning to think I may have a dodgy
stick of RAM or something as I also get Segmentation faults when doing
emerge's on occasion. When this happens it says its an OS error and
retrying the emerge normally fixes it. How can I find out what the
problem is? Is there a way of testing the RAM? Is it possible that it is
the nvidia drivers still (I am often playing music when I run an emerge)??

Any help much appreciated.

Cheers,
Dave.
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Re: [gentoo-user] Dodgy hardware?!?!

[Dan Farrell]

On Wed, 31 Jan 2007 23:27:10 +1100
Dave Oxley <dave@daveoxley.co.uk> wrote:

> Is there a way of testing the RAM? 

a great way, yes, and it's provided on the gentoo boot cds, even the
minimal.  at the isolinux (boot:) prompt, just type memtest-86 and
patiently await the completion of just one test.  
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Re: [gentoo-user] Dodgy hardware?!?!

[Hans-Werner Hilse]

Hi,

On Wed, 31 Jan 2007 06:34:01 -0600 Dan Farrell <dan@spore.ath.cx> wrote:

> On Wed, 31 Jan 2007 23:27:10 +1100
> Dave Oxley <dave@daveoxley.co.uk> wrote:
> 
> > Is there a way of testing the RAM? 
> 
> a great way, yes, and it's provided on the gentoo boot cds, even the
> minimal.  at the isolinux (boot:) prompt, just type memtest-86 and
> patiently await the completion of just one test.  

But always remember that, given the hypothesis that the RAM is working
OK, all memtest can do is to _negate_ this hypothesis. It can never
verify that hypothesis.

So it's always worth to start memtest -- after all, it might fail and
you know for sure that RAM is bad (or memory timing or whatever, but
it's faulty hardware then). But if it doesn't fail that doesn't mean
that RAM is alright!

-hwh
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RE: [gentoo-user] Dodgy hardware?!?!

[Nelson, David (ED, PAR&D)]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Hans-Werner Hilse [mailto:hilse@web.de]
> Sent: 01 February 2007 13:05
> To: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org
> Subject: Re: [gentoo-user] Dodgy hardware?!?!
> 
> 
> Hi,
> 
> On Wed, 31 Jan 2007 06:34:01 -0600 Dan Farrell 
> <dan@spore.ath.cx> wrote:
> 
> > On Wed, 31 Jan 2007 23:27:10 +1100
> > Dave Oxley <dave@daveoxley.co.uk> wrote:
> > 
> > > Is there a way of testing the RAM? 
> > 
> > a great way, yes, and it's provided on the gentoo boot cds, even the
> > minimal.  at the isolinux (boot:) prompt, just type memtest-86 and
> > patiently await the completion of just one test.  
> 
> But always remember that, given the hypothesis that the RAM is working
> OK, all memtest can do is to _negate_ this hypothesis. It can never
> verify that hypothesis.
> 
> So it's always worth to start memtest -- after all, it might fail and
> you know for sure that RAM is bad (or memory timing or whatever, but
> it's faulty hardware then). But if it doesn't fail that doesn't mean
> that RAM is alright!
> 
> -hwh
> -- 
> gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list


I would also note that leaving it for a few hours is generally recommended. I have used memtest86 to identify a few bad sticks of ram and all have shown errors within the first few tests, but it cant hurt to run it a little longer.

In addition - if you have multiple DIMMs and find one is bad, run memtest again after removing the faulty DIMM to make sure the others are fine.

As for the graphics card in the system in question - check that the cooling fan is working correctly. I had some awful artifacting in Linux on a card a year or so ago when the GPU fan snuffed it and the GPU was overheating (the heatsink was hot to the touch such that you couldn't hold a finger on it for long!).

--
djn

Disclaimer: I represent no-one else in my emails to this list. Use any advice given at your own risk.

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Re: [gentoo-user] Dodgy hardware?!?!

[Alan McKinnon]

On Wednesday 31 January 2007 14:27, Dave Oxley wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I have a MythTV frontend running Gentoo on an AMD 64bit with an
> Nvidia 6600 graphics card. I have had no end of problems with the
> graphics card (Xid errors). It crashes with a white line across the
> screen regularly when 3d goom is up when I'm playing music. I've so
> far been putting it down to the nvidia driver but I'm beginning to
> think I may have a dodgy stick of RAM or something as I also get
> Segmentation faults when doing emerge's on occasion. When this
> happens it says its an OS error and retrying the emerge normally
> fixes it. How can I find out what the problem is? Is there a way of
> testing the RAM? Is it possible that it is the nvidia drivers still
> (I am often playing music when I run an emerge)??

Faulty or dodgy RAM is indeed often the cause behind random segfaults. 
The best test of all is gcc which is why you get the error more with 
emerge than anything else. gcc just happens to stress the ram and disk 
system in ways that few other peices of software do.

There is a product called memtest86 which tests ram, but you have to run 
it for many many hours to be sure of ewhat it's saying. And, I have 
read reports that what memtest86 does is predictable, whereas a big 
emerge is much more random.

How to test: Well, you could come up with a $40k once-off rig to test 
memory that costs a fdraction of that. The easy way is to just swap out 
the memory and try again. Buy some, it's not that expensive and you 
*will* use it somewhere soon anyway :-) Or borrow some DIMMS from a  
friend for a day or three

alan

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