Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!csd4.milw.wisc.edu!uxc.cso.uiuc.edu!tank!shamash!com50!mscunx!hawkmoon!det
From: det@hawkmoon.MN.ORG (Derek E. Terveer)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.microport
Subject: Re: NMI in System Mode on System V/386 3.0e
Summary: mem diags typically don't work
Message-ID: <984@hawkmoon.MN.ORG>
Date: 19 Jun 89 12:13:03 GMT
References: <781@cgh.UUCP>
Organization: One of the Eternal Champions - Richfield, MN, 554232523, USA
Lines: 30

In article <781@cgh.UUCP>, david@cgh.UUCP (David Kozinn) writes:
> I've got a problem on my System V/386 3.0e system where I seem to get
> a "NMI in System Mode" pretty regularly after the system has been up
> for a couple of minutes (or more.) [...]
> Since the system documentation says that that message can occur
> because of memory problems, I ran memory diagnostics and found no
> problems. [...]

I had exactly the same problem on my machine (an Acer 1100/386 running V/386
3.0 (now 3.0e)) -- that is, running for apparently random periods of time, but
never exceeding a week and, sometimes, as little as 3 minutes before crashing
with the NMI panic.  The problem is indeed with one or more bad memory chips.
Don't trust the memory diagnostics.  They most likely don't test the memory
very well -- and/or are designed specifically for DOS (most likely).

The intel diagnostics for memory, for example, will not fail even if a chip is
physically removed from the board!  Pretty scarey.  I fixed my problem
completely by starting with a min amount of memory (x number of columns) and
running for a while and then incrementing the memory by one column  and running
some more, etc. until i had isolated the bad memory chip to a single column and
then had the vendor replace the entire column.  No more problems..


Hope this helps,
derek
-- 
Derek Terveer 	    det@hawkmoon.MN.ORG || ..!uunet!rosevax!elric!hawkmoon!det
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"A proper king is crowned" -- Thomas B. Costain