From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1760917AbYEHTls (ORCPT ); Thu, 8 May 2008 15:41:48 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1752429AbYEHTlj (ORCPT ); Thu, 8 May 2008 15:41:39 -0400 Received: from one.firstfloor.org ([213.235.205.2]:44877 "EHLO one.firstfloor.org" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1751185AbYEHTli (ORCPT ); Thu, 8 May 2008 15:41:38 -0400 Message-ID: <4823576F.5090607@firstfloor.org> Date: Thu, 08 May 2008 21:41:35 +0200 From: Andi Kleen User-Agent: Thunderbird 1.5.0.12 (X11/20060911) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: =?UTF-8?B?TWljaGFlbCBFbHNkw7ZyZmVy?= CC: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: Cannot boot any HIGHMEM kernel (kernel panic - not syncing) References: <4822DDF1.5010500@elsdoerfer.info> <87od7h9g1s.fsf@basil.nowhere.org> <4822EAC2.5010502@elsdoerfer.info> In-Reply-To: <4822EAC2.5010502@elsdoerfer.info> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Michael Elsdörfer wrote: >>> Now, Machine Check Exception seems to point towards a hardware error, >> >> It not only seems to, it does. >> The non highmem kernel will simply not use most of your memory, so if >> the machine check happens accessing memory you will not see it. > > Thanks Andi. > > So the problem would be defective RAM in the machine? > > I'm still wondering though while the previous kernel (a self-compiled > 2.6.17.11) worked then. Laxer checks? Memory access patterns change between kernels. Likely if you had filled your memory with some program you would have seen it too. I always use ftp://ftp.firstfloor.org/pub/ak/memeat.c for testing for such problems. It simply allocates all free memory and reads and writes it in a loop. -Andi