Well, it seems like I have my problem solved, cross your fingers, memtest86 has not failed yet.
I did not have PC2700 memory, but I looked around and found a couple of PC3200 512MB modules. I put it in, and to my great delight the system booted. I thought of a new application of the verse in Doctrine and Covenants 89 that talks about hidden treasures. Not only did it boot, memtest86 is already 38% done and still reports no errors. Much better than the original memory - memtest86 reported over 1000 errors in the first 10 seconds. Amazingly, with that type of problem I was able to install Ubuntu, and the system even stayed up for 20 days. I only began suspecting a memory problem after seeing some odd segfaults and ReiserFS corruption. I learned my lesson - do not be lazy and always run memtest86 before you do anything else on a new system. There is a joke when they ask individuals of different nationalities to define happiness. Everybody comes up with some normal definition. Then they ask a Russian. He says - happiness is when two men in dark knock on your door and ask if so-and-so lives here, and you tell him no, he lives upstairs. Along those lines, a new definition of happiness: Happiness is when you run memtest86, discover you have bad RAM, try to find a replacement, cannot find it because it is too old, then you open up the case, discover the system takes a better type of RAM, look for it, cannot find it, then you find a different type of RAM at your house laying around doing nothing, put it in with a dim hope that it would work, and not only does your system boot, memtest86 does not report any errors! -- Sasha Pachev AskSasha Linux Consulting http://asksasha.com Fast Running Blog. http://fastrunningblog.com Run. Blog. Improve. Repeat. /* PLUG: http://plug.org, #utah on irc.freenode.net Unsubscribe: http://plug.org/mailman/options/plug Don't fear the penguin. */
