From owner-freebsd-hackers Thu Apr 6 10:17:28 2000 Delivered-To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Received: from orion.ac.hmc.edu (Orion.AC.HMC.Edu [134.173.32.20]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4815D37BEEC for ; Thu, 6 Apr 2000 10:17:02 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from brdavis@orion.ac.hmc.edu) Received: (from brdavis@localhost) by orion.ac.hmc.edu (8.8.8/8.8.8) id KAA16329; Thu, 6 Apr 2000 10:13:25 -0700 (PDT) Date: Thu, 6 Apr 2000 10:13:25 -0700 From: Brooks Davis To: J McKitrick Cc: hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: bad memory patch? Message-ID: <20000406101325.C10876@orion.ac.hmc.edu> References: <20000406164114.B29984@dogma.freebsd-uk.eu.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 1.0pre4i In-Reply-To: <20000406164114.B29984@dogma.freebsd-uk.eu.org>; from jcm@freebsd-uk.eu.org on Thu, Apr 06, 2000 at 04:41:15PM +0100 Sender: owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG On Thu, Apr 06, 2000 at 04:41:15PM +0100, J McKitrick wrote: > I saw this link recently... > > http://home.zonnet.nl/vanrein/badram/ > > Apparently, you make a floppy with the supplied image, boot with it to > find the bad RAM addresses, and then those addresses are passed on as a > kernel parameter once the patch is applied. Bad addresses will be excluded > from addressable/virtual memory from then on. > > Sounds like sometheing we could use, eh? Not really. If you run it and it says the RAM is bad you know it's bad. If you run it and it says the RAM is good, then you whine and batch and moan for weeks, if not months, that FreeBSD is busted and your machine is perfectly functional until you finaly replace the RAM and the problem goes away. This is not what we want to see. The problem is that testing can't prove correctness because it can't try EVERY possiable access combination. -- Brooks P.S. The "you" in the above doens't refer to the poster, it refers to the poor sucker with a problem who tries to use this so called tool. -- Any statement of the form "X is the one, true Y" is FALSE. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message