Re: ASUS M2A-VM - AMD690G - SB600 Non-Raid-5 SATA - problem

[Tejun Heo <htejun@gmail.com>]

Srihari Vijayaraghavan wrote:
> I had a significant breakthrough: when I removed two out of four 1 GB modules
> (just a stab in the dark to see if the system stability problem I reported to
> LKML ( http://marc.info/?l=linux-kernel&m=117813911431765&w=2 ; a few sample
> oops messages attached for reference) goes away, I stuck a gold mine: now the
> SATA controller detects both the drives :-)).
> 
> So, it'd seem the SATA controller wouldn't work fine when one has a lot of RAM
> on this board. The manual/manufacture's website claim it supports 8 GB of DDR2
> 800, while I only have 4, yet there are a few severe problems already: like
> this SATA drive detection problem & the system instability.
> 
> I now got things working very reliably (even without pci=nomsi) with 2 GB of
> RAM (3 times longer kernel compile torture time with 2 GB, without kernel
> issues, with both pairs of RAM individually, compared with all of 4 GB where
> the system is plagued with instability). I intent to check how far below 4095M
> I could use mem= parameter with, without destablising the system, assuming if
> at all mem= parameters going to help.
> 
> For the record, here's the complete dmesg of the current working system as an
> attachment (dmesg-2.6.21.1-2gigs):
> 
> Thank you for your insight into the problem. If there are any tricks involved
> in making use of all 4 GB of RAM with SATA drives & with system stability,
> I'll be very happy to learn them :-)).

It might be that you just have a bad ram module.  Does the machine work
properly if you exchange the installed two modules with the other two?
memtet86 time, I guess.

-- 
tejun