Re: OT: knoppix memtest powers off after 35 mins
Kent West wrote:
> Nope; the BIOS is not shutting down the laptop.
> I paused the memtest for five minutes, and then let it continue; the
> shutdown occurred five minutes later than it had been shutting down.
How unfortunate because that would have been easier to handle.
> So I restarted the memtest, but this time changed the settings to start
> with test #7; now it shuts down within about one minute. (I tested this
> a couple of times; I also started with #6 once and it ran for a few
> minutes, then I changed it to test #7, and it ran for a minute or so and
> then shut down.)
>
> So the memtest is somehow triggering the shutdown of the laptop.
That does sound like it.
> Is this indicative of bad RAM, even though I've seen no other indication
> of bad RAM, or is it just a coincidence that some pattern during the
> random number test is triggering a power-off?
I don't know what is in pattern #7 but if it runs on other machines
and fails to run on the laptop that would still seem to indicate a
problem on the laptop. I would be very nervous about it.
Things may still be okay with the machine though. You are not to root
cause yet and therefore the behavior not 100% explained does not mean
it is broken. It does not succeed either and so that still leaves a
nervious suspicious behind.
How does it run on tests #8 and beyond? Any other bad hits?
I would also try with different ram configurations. How much ram is
installed? If you have two dimms can you pull one, test, swap, test?
Does the failure happen with both dimms or just one? If you only have
one dimm can you swap with another dimm from elsewhere and again
does it work or fail? For speed of testing I would try the smallest
dimm that I could find. A 64MB dimm should speed through memtest86
much faster than a 1GB dimm and you can more quickly get through a
full pass.
> Hmmm....
Yes. Hmm...
Good luck
Bob
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