Strange things going on with 4.8

[Don Lewis]

On 11 Aug, Robert Gray wrote:
> I'd like to emphasize that memtest86 doesn't catch lots of
> memory problems.  Just last week I was having trouble compiling
> mozilla so I ran memtest86 over night.  Nothing showed up.
> But, "make buildworld" repeatedly failed on 
> compiler signal 11 errors at about 20% complete.
> Using  "make buildworld", I was able to isolate a 
> bad DIMM and now "make buildworld" and
> building mozilla run to completion (multiple times).
> 
> Whenever possible, I run with parity/ECC on the motherboard
> and the memory modules.

So do I.

> I'm hoping a hardware/memory/motherboard expert will chime in.
> How can manufacturers continue to make PCs without memory
> checking?

Because it's cheaper and the mass market doesn't seem to care about data
integrity.

> With today's standards of 128-256MB in a PC, isn't
> it just a matter of time until a bit gets flipped the wrong way?

Yes.

> Are manufacturers hoping that the bad bit will go unnoticed
> in multi-media?

Yes, or when playing games, or when running Microsoft's latest buggy OS.
That's what most PC's are designed for these days and since pretty much
all the manufacturers compete on price ...

> Is there something in today's
> non-parity memory modules that helps insure reliable data?

No.

> Until I hear otherwise, I'll continue to spend extra
> for the redundant, error-checking memories.

Me too, but I've found there is a distinct lack of ECC capable
motherboards for the newer versions of the AMD Athlon XP.