memtest failure on x86_64

[Andrew Farris]

Joe Smith wrote:
> I just built a new Athlon system and decided to test F9 on it.
> 
> Memtest86 from my old F8 rescue CD (i386 arch; memtest 1.70) shows all 
> tests pass, and the system installed F9 and runs stably.
> 
> Except...
> 
> Yum update dies sporadically with database corruption, and memtest 
> (v2.10) from the F9 beta install DVD image won't finish two tests 
> without thousands of errors and it finally crashes. 100% repeatable.
> 
> Can you have such apparently serious memory problems, yet the system 
> runs well?

'well' is a relative term, but you could have some pretty serious memory 
problems that the system manages to trip, stumble, and crawl its way over.

> The BIOS timing settings are still on factory defaults (auto setup).
> 
> The system is an ASUS P1-AH2, AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 
> 4000+, 2Gb DDR2 800.
> 
> Any suggestions?

You might check against the latest netinst.iso image from rawhide (it is the net 
install iso, about 120Mb), it may be named boot.iso on the mirrors.
http://mirror.lib.ucdavis.edu/fedora/linux/development/i386/os/images/boot.iso

> Especially, can anyone tell me for sure that the results from the F9 
> x86_64 memtest are reliable? I seem to have conflicting indicators at 
> this point.

I'm not sure if memtest86 is compiled as 32bit or 64bit on the differing images, 
but at the moment you're using two different arch images, so if it is compiled 
differently you need to remove that as a potential problem.  I linked the i386 
boot.iso above, you might try using both that and the x86_64 version.

-- 
Andrew Farris <lordmorgul at gmail.com> www.lordmorgul.net
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