From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from pigeon.gentoo.org ([208.92.234.80] helo=lists.gentoo.org) by finch.gentoo.org with esmtp (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1NfulJ-0004dN-R9 for garchives@archives.gentoo.org; Fri, 12 Feb 2010 12:36:46 +0000 Received: from pigeon.gentoo.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 960EDE0821; Fri, 12 Feb 2010 12:36:23 +0000 (UTC) Received: from mail.muc.de (colin.muc.de [193.149.48.1]) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 29156E06B4 for ; Fri, 12 Feb 2010 12:36:23 +0000 (UTC) Received: (qmail 80957 invoked by uid 3782); 12 Feb 2010 12:36:22 -0000 Received: from acm.muc.de (pD9E23B9E.dip.t-dialin.net [217.226.59.158]) by colin2.muc.de (tmda-ofmipd) with ESMTP; Fri, 12 Feb 2010 13:36:20 +0100 Received: (qmail 2607 invoked by uid 1000); 12 Feb 2010 12:43:30 -0000 Date: Fri, 12 Feb 2010 12:43:30 +0000 To: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org Subject: [gentoo-user] Ramifications of memtest86 Message-ID: <20100212124330.GB1422@muc.de> References: <20100212085453.GA1207@muc.de> <201002121050.46463.alan.mckinnon@gmail.com> <20100212112221.GA1422@muc.de> Precedence: bulk List-Post: List-Help: List-Unsubscribe: List-Subscribe: List-Id: Gentoo Linux mail X-BeenThere: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org Reply-to: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <20100212112221.GA1422@muc.de> User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.9i X-Delivery-Agent: TMDA/1.1.5 (Fettercairn) From: Alan Mackenzie X-Primary-Address: acm@muc.de X-Archives-Salt: ab4e0a8b-4736-4430-8def-d7a1a1d55e58 X-Archives-Hash: a0538452fe61b778de2b4baec30778ad On Fri, Feb 12, 2010 at 11:22:21AM +0000, Alan Mackenzie wrote: > On Fri, Feb 12, 2010 at 10:50:46AM +0200, Alan McKinnon wrote: > > On Friday 12 February 2010 10:54:53 Alan Mackenzie wrote: > > > Hi, Gentoo, > > > My new Gentoo box has become unusably unstable. > > > The first sign was when the compiler threw a segfault whilst > > > emerging the xfce window manager. I "solved" this by emerging > > > Openbox instead. > > > Then I got another compiler segfault whilst emerging firefox (yes, > > > I know there's a binary for this). > > everything you mention below is indicative of failing hardware, > > especially RAM closely followed by PSU. > Yes, you're right. :-( > When I run memtest86 from the gentoo boot disk, it signals millions of > failures in b11 of 32 bit words. > I'll try unplugging and replugging these. No help. :-( No matter how I plug in the RAM (4 combinations of 2 sticks into 2 pairs of slots) it is always b11 which fails and always at an address ending in (hex) 0 or 8. How is this DDR3 Ram organised? Is each stick 64 bits wide, or are they 32 bits wide, being accessed by the motherboard pairwisely? If the latter, I would have exected the failure to move to address ....4 and ....C when I swap the two sticks. Am I being prematurely pessimistic in thinking the motherboard might be the fault? > > alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com > -- > Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).