Gentoo Archives: gentoo-user

From: Michael Kintzios <michaelkintzios@××××××××.uk>
To: gentoo-user@l.g.o
Subject: RE: [gentoo-user] mysterious segfaults
Date: Thu, 02 Mar 2006 17:56:57
Message-Id: E409A0EB8A569347802C508C49C13439073044@BCV0X134EXC0003
In Reply to: Re: [gentoo-user] mysterious segfaults by matthew.garman@gmail.com
1 > -----Original Message-----
2 > From: matthew.garman@×××××.com [mailto:matthew.garman@×××××.com]
3 > Sent: 02 March 2006 15:54
4 > To: gentoo-user@l.g.o
5 > Subject: Re: [gentoo-user] mysterious segfaults
6 >
7 >
8 > On Thu, Mar 02, 2006 at 02:23:17PM -0000, Michael Kintzios wrote:
9 > > If the application of a domestic cooling fan does not relieve the
10 > > problem, then it could well be faulty memory module(s), or a
11 > > faulty power supply.
12 >
13 > I'm afraid it's a random hardware failure. I've been running
14 > cpuburn for the last couple hours. According to sensors, my cpu has
15 > reached a max temp of 57 degress C. No segfaults thus far.
16 >
17 > It's been several months ago, but I did run about eight hours of
18 > memtest86 on the memory. Is it unusual for memory to work fine for
19 > a while and *then* go bad?
20 >
21 > I might try a new power supply anyway.
22 >
23 > For what it's worth, mysterious problems on this box have come and
24 > gone for probably a year now. Every time something comes up, it's
25 > so random that I don't even know where to start looking. I'm this
26 > -> <- close to building a whole new PC :)
27
28 No two PC's/MoBos are the same, but FWIW here's a bed time story: I had
29 three incompatible memory sticks on mine which kept failing at random.
30 MEMTEST86+ did not show any errors. Occasionally, a simple emerge
31 --sync was enough to crash the machine and needless to say all these
32 repeated crashes had started to corrupt my fs. Running out of ideas I
33 decided to start removing memory sticks until I discovered that the best
34 result (in terms of stability) could only be arrived at if I left only
35 one 256M stick of branded memory in the box. That was despite the fact
36 that the MoBo manual said you could mix 'n match memory modules without
37 any adverse effect on performance... :p
38
39 In case you're suffering from the same problem, check whether a crash is
40 more likely if them machine is about to switch to the next bank of
41 memory/swap. Mine invariably crashed most times it was getting ready to
42 swap data to the hard drive, or in any case as soon as it had used all
43 the memory on the first stick. What drove me insane with this fault was
44 that it would only crash once and thereafter it was often good until the
45 next reboot. Also, if the transition from the first memory stick to the
46 second or swap space, was caused by an application engaging in
47 aggressive resource usage (e.g. Opera loading font files when it hits a
48 website with Chinese characters) a crash was guaranteed. Slowly
49 building up to it during a large emerge session would not cause any
50 crashes.
51
52 I hope this helps.
53 --
54 Regards,
55 Mick
56
57 --
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