From owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Thu May 6 11:55:45 2010 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [69.147.83.52]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 263ED106566B for ; Thu, 6 May 2010 11:55:45 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from jhb@freebsd.org) Received: from cyrus.watson.org (cyrus.watson.org [65.122.17.42]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id ED9AD8FC21 for ; Thu, 6 May 2010 11:55:44 +0000 (UTC) Received: from bigwig.baldwin.cx (66.111.2.69.static.nyinternet.net [66.111.2.69]) by cyrus.watson.org (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id 8B18A46BA0; Thu, 6 May 2010 07:55:44 -0400 (EDT) Received: from jhbbsd.localnet (smtp.hudson-trading.com [209.249.190.9]) by bigwig.baldwin.cx (Postfix) with ESMTPA id 7BE168A01F; Thu, 6 May 2010 07:55:43 -0400 (EDT) From: John Baldwin To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Date: Thu, 6 May 2010 07:48:48 -0400 User-Agent: KMail/1.12.1 (FreeBSD/7.3-CBSD-20100217; KDE/4.3.1; amd64; ; ) References: <1005062053260.2629@smasher> In-Reply-To: <1005062053260.2629@smasher> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: Text/Plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-Id: <201005060748.48256.jhb@freebsd.org> X-Greylist: Sender succeeded SMTP AUTH, not delayed by milter-greylist-4.0.1 (bigwig.baldwin.cx); Thu, 06 May 2010 07:55:43 -0400 (EDT) X-Virus-Scanned: clamav-milter 0.95.1 at bigwig.baldwin.cx X-Virus-Status: Clean X-Spam-Status: No, score=-2.6 required=4.2 tests=AWL,BAYES_00 autolearn=ham version=3.2.5 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.2.5 (2008-06-10) on bigwig.baldwin.cx Cc: Atom Smasher Subject: Re: bad RAM? prove it with a crash dump? X-BeenThere: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Technical Discussions relating to FreeBSD List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 06 May 2010 11:55:45 -0000 On Thursday 06 May 2010 4:57:05 am Atom Smasher wrote: > i suspect i've got bad RAM but memtest has run through several dozen > iterations without a problem. my (3 year old) laptop will run for a few > days or weeks and then crash/freeze/hang. i've enabled crash dumps and i'm > wondering if/how the dump might be able to (dis)prove that the RAM is bad. > any ideas? If you can find a bad pointer that has a single-bit error that can certainly point to bad memory. -- John Baldwin