bad RAM? prove it with a crash dump?

[Sean C. Farley]

On Thu, 6 May 2010, Atom Smasher wrote:

> i suspect i've got bad RAM but memtest has run through several dozen 
> iterations without a problem. my (3 year old) laptop will run for a 
> few days or weeks and then crash/freeze/hang. i've enabled crash dumps 
> and i'm wondering if/how the dump might be able to (dis)prove that the 
> RAM is bad.  any ideas?
>
> thanks...

Do not discount other hardware problems:  video cards, bad capacitors 
and power supplies.  Sadly, I mention these as a subset of my 
experience.  :(  I have even had a faulty left mouse button that would 
lock my X server (many years ago).  While holding the button down 
(scrolling through a menu), the mouse would release and acquire too 
quickly for the server.

Unfortunately, it is harder to find the problem in a laptop where you 
cannot easily (if at all) switch out pieces of hardware to find the 
problem.

Have you investigated whether or not the laptop is overheating?

Sean
-- 
scf at FreeBSD.org