question on a kernal "uhhuh" message
Paul Newell
pnewell at cs.cmu.edu
Wed Aug 27 01:31:54 UTC 2008
Tim wrote:
> Paul Newell wrote regarding memtest86 results:
>
>> I ran the test and it immediately failed. To make sure I was doing
>> things right, I tried in on another machine (which worked) and am
>> trying it on a third machine (which I will check in on tomorrow
>> morning)..
>>
>> Though I am not seeing any problems running on the machine that
>> reported the error during yum update, I am figuring "I gotta hardware
>> problem".
>>
>
> One of my Frankenstein boxes, made from left over computer parts, had
> faulty RAM. The system would often run fine, there'd be occasional
> faults. I didn't know it had faulty memory at the time, it didn't have
> Linux on it, and had never been subjected to the memtest86 program. It
> was much later on that it got tested, and it failed the test every time.
> As an experiment, I left it running as a webserver. It continued to
> work most of the time, but would occasionally die. It must have just
> been luck that the faulty part of the memory wasn't being used, or was
> being used by something that didn't notice the fault.
>
> Moral of the story: A computer that apparently works fine can still
> have faults, you've just not seen them yet, or not associated some
> apparent software faults with actual hardware faults.
>
>
Appreciate the comment, thanks. I can live with a fault if I know
whether it is going to bite me or not later on. I've sent the memtest68
output to manufacturer to see if I can get more info (understanding that
their assumed stance will be "must replace" ... I'm just hoping to get a
"what is it?").
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