Identifying Bad Memory

I was having problems recently with a dedicated production server, that runs my MySQL Server and a number of websites. It’s most annoying when your system crashes without any reporting in /var/log/messages

The tool of choice from the host provider SoftLayer was PassMark BurnInTest Linux which is installed with every dedicated server.

I will need to investigate open source alternatives, as this is a commercial product, but for the purposes of my pain, this included tool was well worth the investment.

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RESULT SUMMARY
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Test Start time: Sun Feb 22 16:02:48 2009
Test Stop time: Sun Feb 22 16:07:49 2009
Test Duration: 000h 05m 01s

Test Name Cycles Operations Result Errors Last Error
CPU - Maths 261 488 Billion PASS 0 No errors
Memory (RAM) 2 3.081 Billion FAIL 1 Error verifying data in RAM
Network: 127.0.0.1 412995 4.295 Billion PASS 0 No errors
TEST RUN FAILED

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SERIOUS ERROR SUMMARY
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SERIOUS : 2009-02-22 16:07:31, RAM, SERIOUS: Error verifying data in RAM (x 1)

It was great to get a simple resolution to the problem, bad memory?
With a scheduled maintenance replacement I was operational again.

**************
RESULT SUMMARY
**************
Test Start time: Sun Feb 22 20:34:37 2009
Test Stop time: Sun Feb 22 20:39:38 2009
Test Duration: 000h 05m 01s

Test Name Cycles Operations Result Errors Last Error
CPU - Maths 267 406 Billion PASS 0 No errors
Memory (RAM) 1 3.664 Billion PASS 0 No errors
Network: 127.0.0.1 334578 3.480 Billion PASS 0 No errors
TEST RUN PASSED

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SERIOUS ERROR SUMMARY
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Tagged with: Databases Linux MySQL

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