Cosmic rays typically causes some bits to flip, hence the big need
for parity memory (but now the more advanced and self-correctable
ECC).
Although, you are usually okay in an enclosed environment.
(supposedly people get quite a few errors with modern memory if they
sit it by the sun light...
Well, cosmic rays can cause memory corruption, see for example:
http://www.eetimes.com/news/98/1012news/ibm.html
But if it always hits one particular device out of many at the same
location, then there might be a more likely explanation, like ... I dunno,
a bug?!? :)
In any case, replacing the
The only thing close to your story is the comment from Robert and Barbara
Thompson in _PC Hardware In A Nutshell, 2e_ where they comment that on a
device used as a server or any other PC that needs a large RAM, they always
use ECC memory (Error Checking and Correction) because (honest!) cosmic rays
We have a Cisco VIP card plugged into a 7500 router. Every once in a while
the card just stops working and sometimes it gets stuck so hard that we
have to reload the microcode. The last we did that, the router crashed and
had to be reset (Ugly!). Well, it gets worse. After having to convince the
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