[COLUG] Memtest86 causes reboot??

[Rob Funk]

jep200404 wrote:
> First, one needs to figure out whether the problem is due to
> hardware or software. If memtest86 running from a live CD
> reveals problems, then the problem is of hardware.
>
> Russ, Rob, comments?

I agree with you, sounds like a hardware problem.

If the memory configuration allows it, the first thing I'd do is try 
removing memory to the minimum possible, then running the test again; 
then after that either seems to work or doesn't, try again after swapping 
out the memory for some that was removed.  In other words, see if the 
problem can be narrowed down to a subset of the memory modules.

In this case it's quite likely that memory is not the problem, but it's 
the easiest thing to test that could be the culprit.  And if the problem 
appears no matter what memory is there, it's probably (but not 
necessarily) not a memory issue and likely a motherboard or power supply 
issue.

But yeah, one of the advantages of buying a Dell and using the OS they 
provide is that you can make Dell figure out and fix the problem.


I recently had weird crashing problems in Linux when I upgraded an old 
PowerMac from 384MB to 1GB.  Because of the hardware, at first I thought 
maybe the motherboard had a problem handling that much memory (some old 
specs I found claimed a max of 768MB).  Trying the memory a bit at a time 
revealed that three of the four 256MB DIMMs I'd purchased from 
Crucial.com were bad.  (Unfortunately I didn't have time to do this test 
until the return period had expired.  I ended up just adding the one good 
new module to the old memory... 640MB ought to be enough for anyone, 
right?)

-- 
==============================|   "A microscope locked in on one point
 Rob Funk <rfunk at funknet.net> |Never sees what kind of room that it's in"
 http://www.funknet.net/rfunk |    -- Chris Mars, "Stuck in Rewind"