Re: DTV antennas?

On Tue, 15 Jul 2008 16:45:38 -0700, dplatt@xxxxxxxxxxxx (Dave Platt)
wrote:

In article <kI9fk.252982$fB7.239429@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Joel Koltner <zapwireDASHgroups@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Do you have a memory tester? Or something more heuristic like running Doom in
a loop or whatever overnight on a "tester PC?"

I recently used a bootable program called MEMTEST86+ which runs quite
a selection of pattern and offset tests on the memory. It can show
the specific conditions under which a bad-data error occurs.

It saved me a good deal of grief, I think. It became clear within an
hour or so that my motherboard was unable to run with four DDR memory
sticks, in a dual-channel mode, with good reliability. The DDR would
run OK in single-channel mode, but would start occasionally dropping a
bit or two in dual-channel mode.

Some searching on Google led me to conclude that it's actually a
motherboard problem (the memory-controller line drivers don't seem to
have enough current capacity to drive the capacitance of four DIMMs at
the same time). I returned the four DIMMS, bought two larger-capacity
ones, and have successfully run these in dual-channel mode at the
highest speeds that the motherboard configuration supports... so I'm
now a happy camper and probably avoided a whole bunch of occasional
nasty intermittent errors and crashes by doing the tests.

It turns out that MEMTEST86+ is available as a standard accessory to
the Debian distribution of Linux, so I've started installing it on
each new Debian system I set up (using GRUB as the boot manager).
Definitely adds peace of mind!

I have had a similar experience. Did not need memtest though. Just
did the rearrangement.

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: DTV antennas?
    ... I recently used a bootable program called MEMTEST86+ which runs quite ... a selection of pattern and offset tests on the memory. ... hour or so that my motherboard was unable to run with four DDR memory ... sticks, in a dual-channel mode, with good reliability. ...
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