Re: A new, unstable system, HW problem ???

[jpahka@welho.com]

Hi again,

This is a collective answer, many thanks to all of you guys. 

So, the consensus seems to be memory problems, which is something that I
suspected myself. I haven't tested thoroughly yet but I will do more testing
tonight (remove one of the memory units, run memtest86+..something else?). 

What I did do is load some 'Failsafe settings' in my bios (since I have no clue
how to adjust memory timings :) and it seems that e.g. the compilation of the
kernel does go alot further...but still crashes in the end. One thing I forgot
to mention in the last post is that with the default bios settings the
compilation always stopped (no crash, just stop) when compiling some filesystem
code (Coda?) but after issuing a new 'make' it would go on, but now with the
more conservative settings it doesn't stop anymore at that point. And also, when
the compile is crashes, the crash is either a whole system crash or just gcc seg
faulting.

Now the specifics: I don't think it's the power supply that's the problem. I
tried two different relatively new Antec power units (300W and 350W) both with
additional ATX12V support. And I have no PCI cards and just the one sata drive
attached in the motherboard, so I don't think the power requirement is that great.

I've tried with the default 2.6.8.? and the most recent 2.6.11.9 kernels in the
64bit installation and the most recent 2.6.11.? kernel in the 32bit
installation. And I see no difference in behavior. But maybe I could try with a
pata drive if I find an empty partition somewhere :)

Any other ideas what to test?

Thanks guys, I surely hope it's the memory that's at fault ( or infact any one
component, just wish I knew which one :)

juhis