On Fri, Nov 08, 2002 at 12:32:29AM -0800, Ralph W. Reid wrote: > Igor Gueths staggered into view and mumbled: > > > >Hi all. Well after digging into this problem a bit further, I figured out > >that the 1:0 reported in the errors about ext2_read_inode were refering to > >/dev/ram0 according to /usr/src/linux/Documentation/devices.txt. That ... > Hmmm. I wonder if this is an indication of a bit of bad RAM. I have > heard that Linux is not very tolerant of bad memory, but RAM problems > are rare enough that I have never heard exactly how they manifest > themselves. If all else fails (and I do mean _all_ else), you might Ram problems are quite regular. Unless you have ECC ram; it is not unheard of to have a few cells fail in the millions of cells in the average computer's sdram/dram/rdram etc. True; memory has become more reliable; but as we run it at faster clock rates; the margin for error deminishes. I had 1 failing bit in 3 sticks totalling 768 megabytes of sdram. The error would quietly corrupt a bit in 768 megabytes whenever that location got used. The error took 30 kernel compiles or 2-3 days to manifest itself in an md5 sum failure or segmentation fault etc. Testing all the memory in the machine with t he memory test at http://www.memtest86.com (you can enable a serial console at compile time) found the error reliably in 40-50 minutes. A switching of the sticks and watching the failing address tracked the module at fault. I removed and tested t he memory again. No errors. I then send the 256-meg stick back for replacement under Waranty. Now I have 768-meg of working memory and audio files or compresssed files do not become corrupt. I used to test the error by bzipping and unbzipping an iso image 10 times or more and checking for errors in the data. This was done on a backup of the image since it would reliably corrupt the original. Regards, Kerry. > try swapping memory module locations on your mother board to see if > this affects the situation at all. RAM failures are very rare, but > they can happen. The simple RAM test performed during system boot > can miss some memory errors, but this is pretty rare as well. I hope > you can get your system working soon. > > Have a _great_ day! > > > > -- > Ralph. N6BNO. Wisdom comes from central processing, not from I/O. > rreid at sunset.net http://personalweb.sunset.net/~rreid > Opinions herein are either mine or they are flame bait. > y = x ^ LOG_B (x, y) > > _______________________________________________ > Speakup mailing list > Speakup at braille.uwo.ca > http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup > > -- Kerry Hoath: kerry at gotss.net kerry at gotss.eu.org or kerry at gotss.spice.net.au ICQ: 8226547 msn: kerry at gotss.net Yahoo: kerryhoath at yahoo.com.au
