[ale] Bad Memory?

[Danny Cox]

Okay, here's a stumper:

	This weekend, I attempted to load RH 7.2 + XFS (from Cheapbytes) onto
my wife's 1GHz Duron with 768 MB RAM.  I've already loaded this distro
onto three other computers, a PIII, a 2X Athlon 1.2 GHz, and a 700 MHz
Athlon, so the distribution has worked before.  Many folks on the xfs
mailing list have used it too, so I'm confident in the distro.  I also
tried just straight RH 7.2.  No luck.

	I found and worked around one problem: when swap space is too large,
anaconda aborts, overflowing an integer (grr).  Making a smaller swap
space allowed me to get around this.  However, the kernel, 2.4.9-XFS was
still oopsing all over the place.  I finally got to a login prompt,
though, and copied over a 2.4.18-xfs kernel from my 700 MHz Athlon.

	This kernel seemed much happier, so I copied over the source tree, and
attempted to compile it.  Whoa!  Segmentation faults, internal compiler
errors, and "unparsable command", followed by a LISPy looking construct,
presumably the internal compiler code.  Hmm.  Memory problems, right? 
This is further confirmed by the fact that it would always fail in a
different place....

	My quandry: already suspecting trouble, and having rsync die (and take
gterm with it) during the /home backup previously on SuSE 7.1, I started
memtest86 2.5, and let it run overnight.  It completed some 17 passes
with zero errors....  Grr.

	So, now what?  Assume memtest86 isn't finding the errors, and start
swapping/removing DIMMs?  I've tried adding 'mem=256M' to the boot line,
and I still get errors, so I assume it's the "lower" memory, but that
may or may not be DIMM slot 0, no?

	Ideas?  Other than, of course, a "boat anchor" sale ;-).

	Thanks!

	General stats:

1GHz Duron
768 MB RAM (3 X 256; rated @ 133, but wouldn't POST, so back to 100)
DFI motherboard (don't have model, but purchased within last 3 months
from Monarch Computer) [VIA chipset (hmm)]
Intel EtherPro 10/100
USR/whoever they are now PCI modem
NVidia GForce 2 GTS 64MB (no NVidia drivers, just XFree86)

-- 
kernel, n.: A part of an operating system that preserves the
medieval traditions of sorcery and black art.

Danny


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