*BSD News Article 74289


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From: j@uriah.heep.sax.de (J Wunsch)
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.hardware,comp.os.ms-windows.win95.misc,comp.os.os2.setup.misc,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
Subject: Re: HELP: Can I mix memory speeds
Date: 20 Jul 1996 16:09:20 GMT
Organization: Private BSD site, Dresden
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stephenk@netcom.com (Stephen Knilans) wrote:

> MANY people have had computers WITHOUT parity or tests, and have had NO 
> problems.  I had several with BOTH, with NO problems!

The problem is that you can detect memory misconfigurations, SIMM
contact problems etc. easier if you get it announced as a parity
error.  Without parity, all you get is (eventually) a segmentation
fault, or a page fault while in kernel mode panic (or however these
things are called in other operating systems).  Then you never know
whether it was a software problem or bad hardware.

Btw., panic does even try to flush the disk buffers, so its effect is
not as desastrous as you describe unless the disk subsystem itself is
hosed.  But in this case, you lose anyway.

-- 
cheers, J"org

joerg_wunsch@uriah.heep.sax.de -- http://www.sax.de/~joerg/ -- NIC: JW11-RIPE
Never trust an operating system you don't have sources for. ;-)