From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S264885AbUEVEnv (ORCPT ); Sat, 22 May 2004 00:43:51 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S264887AbUEVEnv (ORCPT ); Sat, 22 May 2004 00:43:51 -0400 Received: from pincoya.inf.utfsm.cl ([200.1.19.3]:29824 "EHLO pincoya.inf.utfsm.cl") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S264885AbUEVEnt (ORCPT ); Sat, 22 May 2004 00:43:49 -0400 Message-Id: <200405220443.i4M4hh631517@pincoya.inf.utfsm.cl> To: "Timothy Miller" cc: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, miller@techsource.com, vonbrand@inf.utfsm.cl Subject: Re: [OT] Linux stability despite unstable hardware In-reply-to: Your message of "Fri, 21 May 2004 17:57:09 -0400." X-mailer: MH [Version 6.8.4] X-charset: ISO_8859-1 Date: Sat, 22 May 2004 00:43:42 -0400 From: Horst von Brand Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org "Timothy Miller" said: > I have had some issues recently with memory errors when using aggressive > memory timings. Although memory tests pass fine, gcc would tend to crash > and would generate incorrect code when compiling other things. Gcc couldn't > even build itself properly under those conditions. Really? memtest86 did finish its run without errors? I'm sure they'd want to get their hands on the broken RAM... > The really interesting thing is that the Linux kernel was totally > unaffected. Compiling the Linux kernel is often thought of as a stressful > thing for a system, yet compiling a kernel with a broken gcc on a system > with intermittent memory errors goes through error free, and the kernel is > 100% stable when running. Sure enough, if the kernel lives (mostly) in unaffected memory, and furthermore doesn't bang on it quite as hard as a compiler run does (the kernel only runs for a tiny fraction of the time). -- Dr. Horst H. von Brand User #22616 counter.li.org Departamento de Informatica Fono: +56 32 654431 Universidad Tecnica Federico Santa Maria +56 32 654239 Casilla 110-V, Valparaiso, Chile Fax: +56 32 797513