Hi,
I've tried moving RAM around. It didn't seem to make a difference. FYI. The package that fails is often different even without moving RAM around. Solaris 2.5, NetBSD, and OpenBSD all install and function properly on this machine.
I've had similar success with my Sun Fire V215.System stability is on and off, with frequent crashes during heavy use, that look very similar to bad RAM. I think the RAM is fine, though.
At some point, the SMP kernel was practically unusable, while the non-SMP kernel ran mostly stable. Now they're about the same.
Linux used to run very stable on these machines back in the 2.6 days IIRC. A lot of things changed in the meantime, and it's hard to pinpoint an ideal configuration. Some kernels work well, while things may break horribly again after the next update.
Can you recommend a RAM test program for this device?
I'd be interested as well.The ALOM and OpenBoot have some limited memory testing capabilities, but that's maybe not what you're looking for. See: https://docs.oracle.com/cd/E19095-01/sfv890.srvr/817-5950-11/890-diags.html#54069
That page also mentions a SunVTS tool, which includes memory stress testing capabilities.