[wplug] strange memory issue

[Robert E. Coutch]

A couple questions.

Does the memory match the motherboard specs for timing, voltage, etc.
Are we talking about DDR or DDR2 memory and if so do the memories use high 
density chips and does your mother board support those?

Finally, you didn't get them cheap from eBay did you?

On Wednesday 04 November 2009 06:09:04 pm Rick Reynolds wrote:
> Hi wpluggers,
>
> I'm more of a lurker than a really consistent member, so greetings.
> I'm seeing a somewhat strange memory issue with an older system of
> mine and I wondered if anyone on the list has any insights about it.
> The system is a Tyan Tiger MPX S2466N motherboard with 2 1600 MHz
> Athlon processors.  It has been a nice Linux server for me for years.
> I recently decided to upgrade the memory to its max of 4GB (4 x 1GB
> sticks) and use it as a vmware platform for smaller virtual servers.
> My plans are to use either ESXi or vmware server 2 on it.
>
> I've had nothing but problems with it after the memory upgrade -
> mainly segfaults of user space apps, starting with vmware server.
> After chasing the problem from a software point of view, I decided to
> check the memory with memtest86.  Problems detected all over!  After
> reporting lots of errors, memtest86 itself would halt after a few
> minutes due to an "unexpected interrupt."
>
> So I decided to test each stick separately to find the culprit(s).
> Since the original memory errors had been found within a couple of
> minutes, I only gave each stick around 5 minutes of testing before
> moving on to the next one in an effort to find the problem as quickly
> as possible.  All four sticks passed this quick test.
>
> I am now rerunning the original test with all four sticks in place and
> it has been chugging along for the past 35 minutes with no found
> issues.  Things that are different with the later tests: (1) each
> single stick test was done with the stick in the first slot; and (2)
> the four sticks in there now are almost certainly in a different order
> than they were earlier.
>
> I'll be thrilled if the memory passes memtest86's tests, but I'd
> really love to get a nice, warm-fuzzy about the state of this server
> before I start counting on it. Anyone got an explanation for why the
> memory might be behaving better now?
>
> Thanks,
> Rick Reynolds