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flawlessdistortion
n00b
Joined: 20 Jan 2006
Posts: 18
Location: Chicago
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 Posted: Sun Mar 19, 2006 8:58 pm Post subject: Possible Memory Instabilities |
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Hey guys, I'm looking for some advice regarding some stability issues I may be having. I have an Athlon3500, 2x512MB Crucial Ballistix, and a Gigabyte K8NSNXP-939 motherboard. When I first built the system, I was using Corsair Value RAM in dual channel, and it was very unstable. I would get BSODs in WinXP, and the Prime95 torture test would not run for more than an hour or two. I did a lot of research, and eventually learned that the particular memory modules I was using was not "officially supported." The only way to attain stability was to run them at DDR333. I later bought the Crucial Ballistix, which Micron "guarantees" to be compatible with my motherboard, and the problem seemed to be solved. No more crashes and Prime95 ran for extended periods of time (overnight.)
I started using Gentoo about half a year ago, and since then it has been relatively stable, but I have had a few segfaults here and there which worry me. Most have occured during "emerge --sync".
| Code: | Dec 24 19:51:39 reeves ld[31183]: segfault at 0000000000000020 rip 00002aaaaad1a525 rsp 00007ffffff10920 error 4
Dec 26 12:56:22 reeves ld[12086]: segfault at 0000000000000020 rip 00002aaaaad1a525 rsp 00007fffffd25e50 error 4
Dec 26 12:57:35 reeves ld[18107]: segfault at 0000000000000020 rip 00002aaaaad1a525 rsp 00007fffff8f3870 error 4
Dec 29 19:34:45 reeves xcompmgr[5309]: segfault at 0000009500000178 rip 00002aaaab4b4324 rsp 00007fffffc6e6a0 error 4
Feb 16 19:45:43 reeves emerge[5417]: segfault at 00002aaabffbf9e8 rip 00002aaaaac725b1 rsp 00007fffffeba4b0 error 4
Mar 8 20:55:37 reeves emerge[14929]: segfault at 00001000006fb048 rip 00002aaaaac725b1 rsp 00007fffff992680 error 4
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Here are some details about my system...
| Code: | Portage 2.0.54 (default-linux/amd64/2005.1, gcc-3.4.4, glibc-2.3.5-r2, 2.6.14-gentoo-r5 x86_64)
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System uname: 2.6.14-gentoo-r5 x86_64 AMD Athlon(tm) 64 Processor 3500+
Gentoo Base System version 1.6.13
dev-lang/python: 2.3.5-r2, 2.4.2
sys-apps/sandbox: 1.2.12
sys-devel/autoconf: 2.13, 2.59-r6
sys-devel/automake: 1.4_p6, 1.5, 1.6.3, 1.7.9-r1, 1.8.5-r3, 1.9.6-r1
sys-devel/binutils: 2.16.1
sys-devel/libtool: 1.5.20
virtual/os-headers: 2.6.11-r2
ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="amd64"
AUTOCLEAN="yes"
CBUILD="x86_64-pc-linux-gnu"
CFLAGS="-march=athlon64 -O2 -pipe"
CHOST="x86_64-pc-linux-gnu"
CONFIG_PROTECT="/etc /usr/kde/2/share/config /usr/kde/3.4/env /usr/kde/3.4/share/config /usr/kde/3.4/shutdown /usr/kde/3/share/config /usr/lib/X11/xkb /usr/share/config /usr/share/texmf/dvipdfm/config/ /usr/share/texmf/dvips/config/ /usr/share/texmf/tex/generic/config/ /usr/share/texmf/tex/platex/config/ /usr/share/texmf/xdvi/ /var/qmail/control"
CONFIG_PROTECT_MASK="/etc/gconf /etc/terminfo /etc/env.d"
CXXFLAGS="-march=athlon64 -O2 -pipe"
DISTDIR="/usr/portage/distfiles"
FEATURES="autoconfig distlocks sandbox sfperms strict"
GENTOO_MIRRORS="http://gentoo.chem.wisc.edu/gentoo/"
MAKEOPTS="-j2"
PKGDIR="/usr/portage/packages"
PORTAGE_TMPDIR="/var/tmp"
PORTDIR="/usr/portage"
SYNC="rsync://rsync.us.gentoo.org/gentoo-portage"
USE="X aac aalib aim alsa amd64 apm audiofile avi bash-completion berkdb bitmap-fonts bzip2 calendar cdinstall cdparanoia cdr crypt cups dga divx4linux dri dts dvd emboss encode escreen expat fam flac foomaticdb fortran ftp gif glx gpm gstreamer gtk gtk2 icq idn imagemagick imlib ipv6 jabber java jpeg lcms libwww lzw lzw-tiff mad mng mp3 mpeg ncurses nls nptl nptlonly nvidia ogg openal opengl oss pam pcre pdflib perl plotutils png python qt readline samba sdl spell ssl stream tcpd tetex tiff truetype truetype-fonts type1-fonts udev unicode usb vorbis wxwindows xine xml2 xmms xpm xprint xv xvid zlib userland_GNU kernel_linux elibc_glibc"
Unset: ASFLAGS, CTARGET, LANG, LC_ALL, LDFLAGS, LINGUAS, PORTDIR_OVERLAY
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I ran memtest86+ to check my RAM, and it yielded MANY errors, a few on almost every pass, and at random memory locations!! 
How can this be correct? I use my computer all the time, gaming in XP and leaving it on for days at a time under Gentoo. I have compiled lots of software, seemingly without problem. I never get random lockups, only the few segfaults listed above.
I know it seems obvious that my RAM is bad, but could someone explain how it could be so bad as to yield a couple hundred errors in memtest86 and yet very few segfaults and crashes over long term use? I don't overclock, and my memory timings are the manufacturer defaults (2-4-2-8 ). Thanks for reading this thread, I am grateful for any insight you guys might have. |
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yaneurabeya
Veteran
Joined: 13 May 2004
Posts: 1754
Location: Seattle
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| Posted: Tue Mar 21, 2006 12:08 pm Post subject: |
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You don't always use the same sections of RAM at any given time, and depending on how smart memory allocation is, it might be able to mark sectors of RAM as bad, or not. Basically, you'll see problems with your RAM at instances where you're using up basically all of it, which primarily consists of times when you are compiling, or using a memory intensive application (Matlab or Wine for instance), so that is partly the reason why it segfaults only on occassion.
If you have RAM issues though, try swapping the sticks to see if the errors track with the 'bad' RAM, and if so, the RAM is bad. If not (and possibly even worse), you have a bad RAM slot. |
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