jpahka@welho.com wrote:
Memtest86 usually works. Unfortunately, usually < always, but it's the best place to start. Often enough, memory problems can be diagnosed by certain behaviour, and what you're reported seems to drop into that category.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 Isuspected myself. I haven't tested thoroughly yet but I will do more testing tonight (remove one of the memory units, run memtest86+..something else?).
This is quite unlikely. I get the feeling that if VIA_SATA would have had any major issues, I would have come across them by now, and I don't recall reading anyone else having major problems with it either. In the case I mentioned earlier, kernel versions seemed to matter very little. I'm not sure if some ACPI/APIC or Cool'n'Quiet settings (BIOS and kernel) had minor effects, but in all cases, it crashed sooner or later.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 :)
I'd say the odds are good for the memory being faulty. Not 100%, but high anyway. A faulty motherboard is also possible, but the issues you're having seem somewhat strange for a faulty mb. Certainly a BIOS upgrade can be tried, that's one possibility too. If there's a way for you to test another memory module here temporarily, that would probably go a long way.
What I'm a bit concerned of is the amount of problems with this type of memory (Twinmos) and Athlon64 systems, at least Via K8T8xx based ones. Some minor digging revealed another such case. Either it's just a major issue of incompatibility on either side, or they've just had a lot of faulty modules produced.
I have yet to run into problems with Kingston Value Ram, however I haven't done overclocking since 486 times, so I have no idea on their performance, I just go for stability. I'm sure enough there are more than one quality memory brands out there, it's just all about the money.
/v\