Double Trouble
When I got back from visiting people, the server was kaput again. Except this time it really went for it. It would boot, but then fail with INIT complaining about processes respawning too fast. I did the usual googling, and with the aid of the Linux install in rescue mode, I commented out the commands that were failing in inittab. This successfully got me to a login prompt that refused to accept any of my logins.
After spending about a day trying to solve this problem, I decided that the install broken in some severe manner and that I should just reinstall. So, I copied everything (cross-fingers) over to another hard-drive and downloaded Fedora Core 4. However, when I came to try and install it, the process kept failing. Corrupt CD, surely? By this point I was less than sure, and then in the reboots, I started to see fails before it even reached the point of loading from disk.
As the last thing I installed was the extra RAM, I decided to run MemTest86 on it. Sure enough, it failed. Then I tested each stick in turn, and they both passed. Then I looked in the motherboard manual and it said that I could only have on double-sided DIMM onboard if I was running at 200MHz. I tried upping the voltages and moving the DIMMs around, but no luck. I eventually dropped the speed to 166MHz and everything is fine, with a minor loss of performance.
The thing about this is that although the manual does state the facts, this isn’t the usual case. Most socket 754 motherboards will run two DS DIMMs at 200MHz without problems, in fact, my gaming PC does exactly that. What I consider to be the worst thing about it is that the board doesn’t warn you, instead it allows you to run with spurious errors being thrown even to the extent of corrupting your OS install.
Anyway. I’m in the process of putting Humpty back together again, which is likely to completely fill my holiday week. Hardly what I planned, but I can’t do the work I planned without the server, so… ho hum.
