On Tue, 10 Jun 1997, Martin Cernohorsky wrote:

> > A friend that bought some cut-rate DRAMs saw exactly this sort of
> > behavior.  Things would mostly be ok, but compiles would fail with
> > intermittent off-the-wall gripes.  Replacing the newly acquired junk
> > DRAM with good Micron DRAM cured the problem.
> 
> Hmm, is there any possibility to verify the function of the upper part
> of the RAM simpler way than physically removing the DRAM in question
> (i. e. something like configuring the size of the RAM during boot
> time)?

Hmm... It's too bad it's not more common.  It's hard to verify when it's
working and when it's not.  I started a little test program that just
allocates 40Mb, fills it with a known sequence, and then checks it.  So
far, it hasn't failed.  It's not perfect, but if it does fail, I'll know
it's not a bug in make or anything (I think I allready know that).  Oh, I
should mention, Linux gave a similar compiling error last night as well
(gcc gave a syntax error, but starting make again worked fine).  Now I
just have to find where the memory is with the problem.  I wonder if there
is any way to make a certain area of memory not-usable (if it is just a
certain part) - I guess you could just allocate it from the kernel at
bootup, but you'd have to stop it from being paged.

Thanks,
	Rick

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Rick Byers                                      Internet Access Worldwide
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