difficulty installing 5.3-R i386 - how to check RAM

[Kevin Kinsey]

Gabrielle Harrison & Paul van den Bergen wrote:

> OK, thanks for the info... now for the solution...
>
> I have more than 16 MB of ram available but it does nto seem to
> play well  together or there is a problem with some of the chips.
>
> How do I trouble shoot my RAM chips?  for instance, if I swap the
> 2 SIMMs  I have in there atm it does not want to do the POST.  is
> POST success  sufficient to conclude that the chips are OK? 
> is there a BSD utility to  check or diagnose RAM condition or errors?
>
> (ahhh the joys of old hardware...)
>

*g*, Yeah.  I've got piles of it.  Some of them are
my primary DNS/web machines, :-p

As to the question -- Hmm, what should I say?

(1st, a parenthetical observation --- the FBSD list doesn't like
"top posting" much, and you forgot to cc: the list: many people
request that you keep all this discussion _on_ the list for a couple
of reasons.  However, you're probably new to all this; consider
forgiveness extended, but try to play nicer next time? Nothing
personal, you understand ... just a "heads up" for the future....)

The standard answer for "RAM issues" is to download the
program "memtest86", which is available for most any
computing platform.  (e.g., it's OS independent once
you create the floppy disk).  Running this program will create
a bootable floppy disk that you stick in the box, boot
into, and it runs tests all day long until you shut it down.

I believe you want http://www.memtest.org

IIRC, you may be able to get a log/report from it, so
you don't have to sit there through $n iterations of
the test and watch the screen for errors, but YMMV.

As for mixing chips, it's been a long, long time, and I
was more like a "hobbyist" then (maybe still am), but
I do seem to remember it was a "no no" to mix EDO
and FP chips, or some such, blah blah....

HTH,

Kevin Kinsey