[conspire] One way to test system RAM

[Eric De Mund]

Rick,

] I determined a few days ago that my "new" 2001-era VA Linux Systems
] model 2230 2U rackmount server, the intended replacement for the cur-
] rent linuxmafia.com box, really _did_ have two defective sticks of
] RAM, out of four total.
]
] [...]
]
] Anyhow, I did bite the bullet and buy replacements from S.A. Technolo-
] gies, Inc. of Santa Clara (www.satech.com). They arrived Wednesday
] afternoon -- and I faced a pleasantly unfamiliar problem: How do you
] torture-test a Linux server with prodigious (by my rather laughable
] standards) amounts of RAM?
]
] This is what I came up with:
]
] # cd /usr/src/linux-source-2.6.16
] # while : ; do make clean && make -j 256 ; done

Point of clarification: May I ask why you're using a home-grown method
rather than the exceptionally thorough Memtest86 <http://memtest86.com/>?
In past years I've had good luck with Memtest86, both for clients and
personally. Note that in some cases on slower machines it has taken 20+
hours to run to completion.

Are you trying to perform some test other than a "thorough, stand-alone
memory test (for x86 architecture computers)", which is how Memtest86
bills itself?

Cheers,
Eric
--
"The goal of Computer Science is to build something that will last at
least until we've finished building it." --fortune(6) cookie

Eric De Mund              |      Ixian Systems      | 
email: <ead at ixian.com>    | 650 Castro St, #120-210 | ICQ: 811788
http://www.ixian.com/ead/ | Mountain View, CA 94041 | Y!M: ead0002