Re: Bad memory (was: Linux crashes a lot)
On Sat, Sep 02, 2000 at 03:21:36AM -0500, John Reinke wrote:
> Well, I ran the memtest86 program on my computer, and it looks like I have
> some bad memory. My question is: Is it normal (safe) to have one error on a
> stick of RAM?
If you want to have a stable system then it is not safe!
But I am not sure if your memory really has errors. It might be that
you have a timing problem in your BIOS-Setup. Modern SDRAMs use
something calles SPD to determine the proper timing settings. That is
the reason why you should not use memory from different vendors or
timings.
What might going on is this: Your 64MB RAM is quite fast and it tells
the BIOS it wants to be run with fast timings. But the 32MB RAM does
not support SPD or it does not work correctly so the BIOS does not
know how to handle it and uses the fast settings of the 64MB.
I remember about reading some BIOSes that just checked the module in
the first bank and left the others untouched.
You could try to run both modules with the slowest possible timings
and run the tests again.
For me it sound very unlikely that every address in the 32MB produces
errors so it might be a timing problem.
Phil
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