poogle wrote: >The scenario, my Partner's standalone PC at work regularly crashing in Win 95, >the solution I suggested was that I would install Mandrake, solution accepted >and project complete. >Day 1 - complete freeze while left unattended, no response to any key or >mouse, clock showing the wrong time (the time it froze). >Day 2 Having had nagging doubts about their power supply She is set up with my >UPS. >Day 3 & 4 No problems - Power supply then >Day 5 Freeze >Day 6 (today) PC to my workshop (well the spareroom really), run memtest for 9 >cycles and only get one error during run 1 this is :- >FAILURE: 0x00000000 != 0xffffffff at offset 0x005c5328 >All other 8 cycles produced no errors. >The question is does this indicate failed/failing memory ? >I have never used memtest before so am unsure what I should expect (also >unsure whether 9 cycles was enough or should I have left it running until it >got bored and quit) > > >------------------------------------------------------------------------ > >Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? >Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com > One failure is one too many.
REmove the memory, burnish contacts with eraser end of pencil, degrease with isopropyl alcohol, clear slots with compressed air can, reinsert. Run memory test again. Or alternatively, replace memory and run memory test again. It may be the motherboard circuitry. But a freeze like that, with all the power management stuff turned off, is indicative of a hardware problem. If the BIOS has ACPI and it is activated, that may be the cause of a freeze when left unattended for a while. But yes, the extremely low probability failure is unacceptable in computing. If something has a finite chance of failure, no matter how small, that allows you to calculate how often to expect it. There is no doubt whatsoever that it will occur. There is no "almost" passing a memory test. Windows is beloved of hardware manufacturers for that very reason. Freeze-ups are so common from software causes that hardware flaws are masked. Not so with linux. A freeze unrecoverable is a rare occurrence. Even "frozen" boxes seem to be able to switch to console or to allow an ssh entry or the emergency alt-sysrq-r alt-sysrq-s alt-sysrq-b to go to raw keyboard input, emergency disk sync and reboot without a reset switch. But here is what I have (last reboot was to change hardware) [tester@v5 tester]$ uptime 12:16pm up 16 days, 21:14, 3 users, load average: 0.00, 0.01, 0.00 [tester@v5 tester]$ [tester@msn75 tester]$ uptime 12:08pm up 45 days, 19:41, 2 users, load average: 0.49, 0.17, 0.06 [tester@msn75 tester]$ These are two of my systems, the second an IBM PC300GL P2-300, the other a Duron 900 on a POJ Matsonic motherboard with the most buggy VIA chipset ever. The gateway I could post as well, but that was last altered before the release of 8.2 and is running with the latest updates, so it isn't fair, but its uptime is more than 180 days, because I last booted it December 24, 2001 (yep on my birthday when I changed its physical location and the location of the DSL it was connected to. I did not even boot it when I stopped using DSL and switched to cable modem. It is another IBM PC. Yes, all of these have passed memtest left for 3-4 days running, since they are production machines. The last downtime I had was on the Matsonic Mobo because a plastic shaving jammed the CPU cooling fan. The fan was replaced and we are still running. Civileme Civileme
Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
