memtest - an idea

[Holger Kipp]

On Tue, Feb 14, 2006 at 05:41:38PM +0000, Vladimir Konrad wrote:
> is it viable to have a memtest like process running full-time (low
> priority) or scheduled, on running FreeBSD system to discover bad memory
> sooner than a later (without taking the system off-line)?

Imho this is not the right way to do it.

> being on the receiving end of a bad memory module (FreeBSD did random
> reboots, checked the memory with memtest and there it was), it would be
> nice if the OS could spot this.

According to my experience, if memory goes bad slowly or does not match
the mainboard specificatin (or vice versa), you might not find anything 
with memtest, whilst a buildworld might give signal 11 within a few 
minutes.

Having said that, if you need a reliable plattform, then ECC-memory
on a good server board - or even memory in Raid 1 - might be worth
considering. Then you only need to monitor the hardware health to
know if memory goes bad, and you still have some time to replace it.

Regards,
Holger Kipp