[gentoo-amd64] Re: problems with emerging programs

[Duncan]

"Richard Fish" <bigfish@××××××××××.org> posted
7573e9640609251725q52cf39efr58d0f59dfb15ce5b@××××××××××.com, excerpted
below, on  Mon, 25 Sep 2006 17:25:50 -0700:

> On 9/25/06, Patric Douhane <patric@×××××.se> wrote:
>> That didn't help. But I have some more info on my problem though, found
>> this line when trying to emerge mozilla-firefox:
>>
>> "./loadmsgcat.c: 1295: internal compiler error: Segmentation fault"
>>
>> Hope someone can interprete it...
>
> Every time I've seen this message on my systems, it has been the result of
> flakey hardware, particularly memory.  Nothing stresses the memory system
> quite like compiling.
>
> If the system works otherwise, I suspect flaky memory timings.  Try
> backing those off (in the BIOS), and see if the problems disappear.
>
> And of course, if you are overclocking anything, stop!

100% agreed!  I used to have some borderline generic memory, rated pc3200
(400 MHz), that wasn't quite stable at that.  The trouble was my machine
didn't at that time have a BIOS with memory timing limit capacities, so it
was clocked what it was rated and that was that.

After suffering with it for awhile, I discovered they had a new BIOS
update out which allowed memory timing limits.  Setting it to limit @ 183
MHz (DDRed to 366), I guess PC3000, it was stable as a rock, no problems
whatsoever, until I upgraded to 8 gig awhile later.

Anyway, while it would occasionally freeze the machine, doing whatever,
the worst was bunzip2ing and compiling.  Those would segfault frequently
enough that I had to babysit all my emerges, and learn how to restart in
the middle of them instead of starting over.  So yes, definitely, if gcc
is segfaulting, that's a very strong hint of a hardware problem.

Note that memory is one possibility, but another strong candidate is bad
power, either due to a bad (or underpowered) computer power supply, or in
one case that came up on the lists, an underpowered UPS, or possibly
simply bad incoming power.  So in addition to checking memory, verify your
entire power system, from the wall, thru your UPS (if you don't have one,
try one, but make sure it's high enough powered), thru your computer power
supply itself.  Low power's the equivalent of clocking beyond stable, in
that the effect is occasional zeros where there should be ones.  And yes,
it's gcc and bzip2 (well bunzip2) that seem most sensitive to it.

On the bright side, when there was a problem, gcc would segfault or
there'd be other errors.  I never had an issue with bad builds due to the
memory.  It either built right, or it failed to complete the build at all.

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman

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