Ulrich Fuchs wrote:
The replacement arrived, and Jason tested it, and it had the same ram errors. The problem is mysterious, but anyhow we are to the point where we are likely going to send the machine back and have them fix it and return it. I haven't spoken to Jason this morning, so I don't know the exact status of that situation.
What about that status today?
The new machine should arrive later today at Jason's house. He intends to do a burn-in on that one, including memtest86.
Geoffrin continues to give errors on some memory tests, in every different configuration that Jason tests. He has 2 motherboards and lots of sticks of ram. But we are currently not 100% sure what the exact situation is, as follows:
1. As shipped, Geoffrin gave errors in test #8 of memcache86. Jason has determined that this was due to the memory being in the wrong slots as shipped. This is Penguin's fault, of course, but on the other hand, the motherboard manual contains contradictory information, so it's easy to understand the error.
2. In various configurations consistent with the correct placement of memory, Geoffrin gives sporadic errors in test #11. These are listed as "ECC" errors, which Jason believes may mean that these are o.k., i.e. errors that were caught and fixed by the ECC stuff in the RAM. Or, it may mean something else. He was researching that yesterday afternoon.
3. Therefore, it is quite possible that Geoffrin will run just fine in the current configuration. Certainly, it no longer gives errors in test #8. It is also possible that Geoffrin will *not* run just fine in the current configuration. He's doing testing, but there's no way to be certain, really certain, until we see what happens.
4. As a result, we're still planning to loan this other machine to Wikipedia as a backup for Geoffrin. We do not know what time it will arrive at Jason's house. Also, this new machine has only 1 gig of RAM, and I'm purchasing more to go into it. There's some question as to whether we should wait until Monday when that RAM arrives before Jason drives to San Diego to install all this stuff, or if he should go today. (And going today is contingent on what time the new machine comes in, anyway.)
--Jimbo