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

[Volker Armin Hemmann <volkerarmin@googlemail.com>]

On Sonntag 14 Februar 2010, Dale wrote:
> chrome://messenger/locale/messengercompose/composeMsgs.properties:
> > Hi, Dale,
> > 
> > On Fri, Feb 12, 2010 at 05:27:55PM -0600, Dale wrote:
> >> chrome://messenger/locale/messengercompose/composeMsgs.properties:
> >>> 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.
> >>> 
> >>> 
> >>> 
> >>> Many thanks to all who helped me track this one down!
> >>> 
> >>>> Dale
> >>>> 
> >>>> :-)  :-)
> >> 
> >> There you go.  Most likely one little transistor that went belly up.
> >> Considering there are millions of those little devils on there, no
> >> surprise at all.
> > 
> > Oh, don't be like that!  You're saying, like, another "little" transistor
> > will soon be going.  ;-)
> 
> That's not what I meant at all.  Consider the odds.  There are millions
> of little circuits on those chips, even a 0.0001% failure rate can mean
> the chip is bad.  They either all work or the chip doesn't work.
> 
> >> Glad you got it sorted out and that is better than a lot of other
> >> options.  Since it is new, I hope you have a good warranty that will
> >> make it a cheap fix as well.
> > 
> > I bought my PC components from a premium quality shop, the sort that
> > behaves like a gentleman and honours its guarantees.  Its email support
> > gets back to you within an hour or so (in business hours).  The
> > proprietor said I needed to send back _both_ RAM sticks (since they have
> > a joint serial number), but he's sending me a replacement pair first, so
> > my machine remains working.
> > 
> > For all that, the cost of this PC was less than half that of its
> > predecessor, a 1.2 GHz Athlon machine from ~2001.  With desktop PCs now
> > being so ridiculously cheap anyhow, it seems false economy to buy from a
> > lesser vendor.
> > 
> >> Dale
> >> 
> >> :-)  :-)
> 
> I bought mine from newegg and they stand behind theirs too.  Things is,
> the person you buy them from doesn't decide if it is a bad one or not.
> It's just a luck of the draw.  I doubt there are many companies that
> want to sell something that is broken.  It's not good for business.

no, but some shops just say 'ok, that is bad luck, here is a new set, try 
these'. And some others let you wait or just don't believe you, demand the 
output of certain test apps etc pp.

Some years ago a friend had a stick that would produce errors only in certain 
scenarios (it was a muster dependent error). Most checkers back then did not 
find it. Our favorite shop just exchanged it....

And that kind of service is a good reason to buy there.