Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!crdgw1!crdos1!davidsen
From: davidsen@crdos1.crd.ge.COM (Wm E Davidsen Jr)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: Parity (was: Time between memory failure)
Message-ID: <2104@crdos1.crd.ge.COM>
Date: 8 Feb 90 19:07:47 GMT
References: <1911@sunquest.UUCP> <38420@apple.Apple.COM> <2102@crdos1.crd.ge.COM> <31673@shemp.CS.UCLA.EDU>
Reply-To: davidsen@crdos1.crd.ge.com (bill davidsen)
Organization: GE Corp R&D Center, Schenectady NY
Lines: 22

In article <31673@shemp.CS.UCLA.EDU> frazier@oahu.UUCP (Greg Frazier) writes:

| Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't we talking about soft
| errors, here?  If so, the repair man isn't going to see
| them.  

  You make a good point. If I see an error infrequently, not in the
same location, I can accept that as a soft error. If I see failure at
one location, even only a few times a year, I assume that it is a
marginal part.

  There are several programs which allow changing the refresh rate on a
PC style machine. I find that "soft errors" go away when memory tests
are run on a system with slowed refresh, and the marginal parts are
replaced. I talked to the repair guy again, and he said that people are
not reporting intermittent errors. I don't know if that means they don't
mention them, or the memory tests find them. We do tend to replace
memory as bad if the error rate is non-zero, easier now that prices are down.

-- 
bill davidsen	(davidsen@crdos1.crd.GE.COM -or- uunet!crdgw1!crdos1!davidsen)
            "Stupidity, like virtue, is its own reward" -me