panic: RAM problem or something else?

[Richard H. Douglas]

todd at pinhead.pegasus.com (Todd Ogasawara) writes:
> One of my UNIX boxes crashed the other day with the following panic message
> on the console.
> 
> 	FATAL: Parity error on motherboard
> 	PANIC: Parity error at address 0x007D8BCA
> 	DEBUGGER ; ebp ; 0x0E0000DB4
> 
> The system is configured as follows:
> ... 
> BTW. The system has been up contiuously for about three months without
> any other problems noted.
> ...

Somewhere on the net, I read that radiation (alpha I think) can and will
eventually get you if a machine is left on constantly. Make sure your
ram is of good quality and that it is conservatively rated. It's too bad
that manufacturers do not make boards with ecc correction on them, or did
I miss something somewhere? A extra chip and a little extra cash would
let me sleep better at night.

One other item. Are you on a UPS? A good one? One with a very fast transfer
time or no delay at all. On a 386/486, it's my guess that better than
1 ms should be required. In photography, 1 ms = 1/1000 of a second; not fast
at all.

Yes, I have had this happen to me quite frequently until I got faster ram.

One other thing, if this happens very frequently, give your machines
power supply a good look. They don't have to act bad to be marginal.

Hope this helps.

Rich Douglas    doug at ohenry