Skip site navigation (1)Skip section navigation (2)
Date:      Tue, 22 Mar 2011 12:54:49 -0700
From:      Matthew Jacob <mj@feral.com>
To:        John Baldwin <jhb@freebsd.org>
Cc:        "Bjoern A. Zeeb" <bz@freebsd.org>, freebsd-arch@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: kernel memory checks on boot vs. boot time
Message-ID:  <4D88FE89.1060900@feral.com>
In-Reply-To: <201103221551.14289.jhb@freebsd.org>
References:  <alpine.BSF.2.00.1103221634241.6104@ai.fobar.qr> <201103221551.14289.jhb@freebsd.org>

next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
John Baldwin wrote:
>  
> Do other platforms bother with these sorts of memory tests?  If not I'd vote 
> to just drop it.  I think this mattered more when you didn't have things like 
> SMAP (so you had to guess at where memory ended sometimes).  Also, modern 
> server class x86 machines generally support ECC RAM which will trigger a 
> machine check if there is a problem.  I doubt that the early checks are 
> catching anything even for the non-ECC case.
>
> If nothing else, I would definitely drop this from amd64 (all those systems 
> have SMAP and machine check support, etc.).
>
>   
Memory checks are definitely still useful. Loading the linux mem tester 
has helped find lots of problems, even on so-called modern machines. I'd 
voter for leaving this as an option.



Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?4D88FE89.1060900>