[ltp] Total lockup on a T40

[Fabrice Bellet]

Hi Pete,

On Sun, Oct 19, 2003 at 07:17:50PM -0700, pete hilton wrote:
> At random times the whole machine just locks up solid ... 

Random lockups are often a symptom of memory problems. It depends on
when the memory corruption occurs. If it occurs while a process is 
in userland, you get random segfaults (the typical point here is that
these segfaults are not reproductible), else if the process is running 
in kernel space, you get kernel oops, fatal crashes, freezes,...

You really should test your machine with memtest86, so you'll find
quickly if this is memory related. Apply this patch to latest memtest86,
so it'll correctly setup the L1/L2 cache size information for your 
processor.

http://bellet.info/~bellet/laptop/memtest86-3.0.patch
http://bellet.info/~bellet/laptop/t40.html#memory_problems

One easy thing to test too, is to remove the supplementary memory chip,
and to test the machine in this configuration.

My personnal experience with IBM service is that they understand that
their memory chips may have problems, and don't hesitate to change the
buggy modules. You just have to convince them that you're really sure
that this is a memory problem.

Good luck,
-- 
fabrice