Re: [gentoo-user] Ramifications of memtest86. Got it!

[Alan Mackenzie <acm@muc.de>]

Hi, Dale,

On Fri, Feb 12, 2010 at 08:27:01AM -0600, Dale wrote:

> Where the error is could depend on a single transistor that is maybe
> not as sensitive as the others.  It's sort of like a chain.  It's only
> as strong as its weakest link.  It could be that whatever is going
> wrong could be right on the edge of others not working either.  The
> one that is failing is just the first if it is a power problem.
> That's where the power problem thought comes from.  Have you had a
> look here for well tested power supplies?

> That said, it could be a lot of things.  It could be a bad chip on the 
> mobo, a piece of dust in the wrong place or any number of other things.  
> It's finding it that is so much fun.

The shop who sold me the components suggested running memtest86 with
just one RAM stick at a time.  It turns out, one was duff, the other's
just fine.  (It went ~20 minutes on memtest86 without any errors.)  So
it looks like I'll be running on 2Gb only until I get a replacement for
the broken one.

> Again, lots of things it could be.  So far, everybody has replied with
> good ideas to check.  There are lots of them.

Many thanks to all who helped me track this one down!

> Dale

> :-)  :-)

-- 
Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).