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From: ballard@cheddar.ucs.ubc.ca (Alan Ballard)
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.misc
Subject: Re: Memory problems
Message-ID: <1991Jan10.182346.18598@unixg.ubc.ca>
Date: 10 Jan 91 18:23:46 GMT
References: <4951@lure.latrobe.edu.au>
Sender: news@unixg.ubc.ca (Usenet News Account)
Organization: Computing Services, University of British Columbia
Lines: 28

In article <4951@lure.latrobe.edu.au> CCMK@lure.latrobe.edu.au (Mark Kosten - Computer Centre, La Trobe Uni.) writes:
>I am running version 1.20 on an IBM model 70 with 6MB memory
>and with memory swapping and compaction on in config.sys.
>...
>I run a few programs repeatedly (quitting and restarting, such
>as the file manager, editor) and slowly memory gets eaten up
>till there is about 20 KB left and then sometimes I get a system
>shutdown with 'memory faulty' error, which I do not believe as
>no tests or other programs have ever found faulty memory. 

I run a very similar configuration and haven't encountered this problem.
I can think of two possibilities:
-- a genuine memory fault.  OS/2 checks out your memory much more thoroughly
than other uses. Many diagnostics don't seem to check all installed RAM, or 
don't check all bits, or something. IBM's own *certainly* don't test the RAM
properly.  I have encountered problems with RAM failing under OS/2 that 
seemed to work fine in other situations. 
-- how is your swap file configured?  If you have SWAPPATH in the config.sys,
the parameter is the amount to leave *free* for possible file system use. If
this number is too big, relative to the amount of free space on your disk, 
OS/2 will be unable to swap. 



Alan Ballard                   | Internet: ballard@ucs.ubc.ca
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