RAM problems

[Chris]

On Oct 1, 2006, at 9:00 AM, Dino Vliet wrote:

>
> What should I do now? Continue using it, without
> portupgrading or compiling a new kernel or ask a new
> pair of banks at the store?

I actually had a strikingly similar problem. I would freeze on  
portsnap updates. A -j8 buildworld would always get random  
segmentation faults. The handbook states the latter is a memory  
problem. The vendor insisted it was a FreeBSD problem but suggested I  
read the mobo manual (something I try to avoid). It turned out that  
when adding the additional memory, they had used consecutive slots  
rather than skip DIMM banks as the manual suggested (e.g., in my case  
using only 2 sticks required going to DIMM0 and DIMM2 leaving DIMM1  
empty on each of the CPU bank slots, though your details will vary).  
If your problem was as mine was, it isn't a FreeBSD problem but a  
mobo set up, bad stick or possibly memory incompatibility issue.

I'd think continuing as is will just cause the problem to appear in  
other ways and if incompatibility or failed stick, you are losing  
your money. BTW, on AMD64, I used the port memtest to find a bad stick.

Chris