From owner-freebsd-isp Fri Dec 5 18:31:54 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id SAA07250 for isp-outgoing; Fri, 5 Dec 1997 18:31:54 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-isp) Received: from time.cdrom.com (root@time.cdrom.com [204.216.27.226]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id SAA07241 for ; Fri, 5 Dec 1997 18:31:51 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from jkh@time.cdrom.com) Received: from time.cdrom.com (jkh@localhost.cdrom.com [127.0.0.1]) by time.cdrom.com (8.8.7/8.6.9) with ESMTP id SAA16745; Fri, 5 Dec 1997 18:31:56 -0800 (PST) To: "George M. Ellenburg" cc: "'isp@freebsd.org'" Subject: Re: FW: Touching Base In-reply-to: Your message of "Fri, 05 Dec 1997 13:59:39 EST." <01BD0186.0B94F9C0.gme@inspace.net> Date: Fri, 05 Dec 1997 18:31:55 -0800 Message-ID: <16742.881375515@time.cdrom.com> From: "Jordan K. Hubbard" Sender: owner-freebsd-isp@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk [Redirected to just -isp; please don't cross-post to more than one mailing list - thanks!] > An associate of mine is experiencing a rather unique problem with his > FreeBSD box (P233, 64Mb Ram, 2 Maxtor 3.0gb IDE Hard Drives) ... I'm > enclosing an excerpt from our message. Perhaps you may have some clues > as I'm stumped. Not unique at all, this is bad memory, not a software problem. The fact that CheckIt did not find any errors is also hardly surprising. CheckIt is not a sufficient tool for this purpose and will find only the most egregiously obvious errors (and even then, almost never at all if your guy forgot to turn the internal and external caches off before running the CheckIt tests!) - any hardware engineer who actually knows what he is doing will laugh at this particular diagnostic method, and with good reason. I've talked with TouchStone software, the makers of this beast, and when challenged they'll admit that a hardware based memory checker is really the only tool for the job if you want to be sure. I've taken *known bad* SIMMS and run CheckIt on them, just as a test, and had it pass them with flying colors (at which point I called TouchStone and had the aformentioned dialog, just to be sure my suspicions were correct). Jordan > > Regards, > > George Ellenburg > > > -----Original Message----- > From: Tom Holderby > Sent: Friday, December 05, 1997 11:57 AM > To: George M. Ellenburg > Subject: Re: Touching Base > > George, > > [My Comments:] [...Non Relevant Material Cut...] > > Let me also give you a quick update on the FreeBSD situation. When I > run > that "tar x" while sitting at the console I see "Memory Parity Error". > But > I ran several iterations of the CheckIt memory diagnostic with its most > advanced testing options and it's not turning up any errors, so I tend > to > believe it's a software problem. I have definitely seen software bugs > cause memory parity halts, but that was mostly back in the days of > assembler code under DOS when you tried to access a non existant add > ress. > I've never seen it under Unix before. Any ideas? > > Tom >