From owner-freebsd-questions Sun Sep 15 03:54:54 1996 Return-Path: owner-questions Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) id DAA13966 for questions-outgoing; Sun, 15 Sep 1996 03:54:54 -0700 (PDT) Received: from GndRsh.aac.dev.com (GndRsh.aac.dev.com [198.145.92.241]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) with ESMTP id DAA13932; Sun, 15 Sep 1996 03:54:45 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from rgrimes@localhost) by GndRsh.aac.dev.com (8.7.5/8.7.3) id DAA00240; Sun, 15 Sep 1996 03:53:14 -0700 (PDT) From: "Rodney W. Grimes" Message-Id: <199609151053.DAA00240@GndRsh.aac.dev.com> Subject: Re: Q: Tyan Tomcat I with > 64MB RAM In-Reply-To: from Amanda Chou at "Sep 15, 96 01:21:45 am" To: achou@best.com (Amanda Chou) Date: Sun, 15 Sep 1996 03:53:14 -0700 (PDT) Cc: michaelv@MindBender.serv.net, questions@freebsd.org, hackers@freebsd.org, hardware@freebsd.org X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4ME+ PL25 (25)] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-questions@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk ... > > Actually we solved the problem already, and the solution is fairly simple > (but not terribly obvious). I got those 8 16MB EDO RAMs from two different > places: Fry's and Chip Merchant. Fry's get their chips from different > suppliers, while Chip Merchant get theirs only from one place. As soon as > we put Fry's RAM in lower banks and Chip Merchant's in the higher banks, > bingo, it started working! Someone at Chip Merchant is not telling you the whole truth. They may be _buying_ all thier memory from the same memory broker, but it comes from all over the place. Just taking a sample of my last 5 orders of 32MB, 8MBx36-60nS FPM 24 chip modules I show these manufactures: LGS on 3rd party LGS with MT parity on Liteon OKI on 3rd party OKI on 3rd party SEC on 3rd party You have a very slim chance of getting the same memory 2 orders in a row from the Chip Merchant, and realize I am a manufacturer who is order in volume once or twice a week. (Okay, so now all your folks know where AAC gets good memory from :-)). > > The lesson we learned is: try to get all your memory made from the same > factory if you try to build a system with more than 64MB RAM. Let me guess that some of this EDO memory is made by someone other than Micron, yea, let me see if I can put my finger on it... could it possibly be Siemens? If so be wary, there is a huge batch of these chips floating around that appear to be marginal. -- Rod Grimes rgrimes@gndrsh.aac.dev.com Accurate Automation Company Reliable computers for FreeBSD