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Re: [LUG] Computer constant reboots

 

On 25/06/14 22:10, Simon Waters wrote:
> On 23/06/14 12:37, mr meowski wrote:
>>
>> memtest is telling you pretty unequivocally that there is bad RAM in the
>> system - remove it and replace it with good units if possible, and keep
>> running memtest until the errors go away.
> 
> In defence of RAM, we had a box that repeatedly failed memtest, turns
> out the DELL BIOS would co-opt some memory and kept quiet about doing so
> (it is suppose to reserve it).

Presumably some piece of hardware, on the board, expected to be able to
write (and read) this memory.

Which both memtest and an OS is likely to see as random memory corruption.

Something more obscure than dividing the memory between CPU and GPU.

> Passed the DELL memory test fine as it exempted the memory in question
> (doh!).

Depending on the model Dell machines can have diagnostics in flash
memory, on a special partition or both. In either case you'd expect it
to understand any Dell specific BIOS settings.

> Unfortunately the OS also didn't understand what the BIOS was doing, but
> once it was explained to it, it stopped its random crashing.

One with Dell specific tweaks probably would understand without needing
to be helped.



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