Hi All,

My Fedora Core 3 machine has been getting random crashes/segmentation faults recently. I first noticed the problem when random applications (firefox, azureus etc) were crashing and occasionaly the system would completely lockup (not allowing me to ctrl-alt-Fn to another terminal).

At first I thought it was a software/kernel problem - however, while trying to compile a new kernel I get random segmentation faults, i.e: at different points during the build. I have launched the system from the FC3 rescue disk and tried compiling the kernel again (so that I'm using a safe boot that won't cause problems) but the random seg faults remain.

Therefore I'm beginning to think it's a hardware problem* (read: the expensive kind of problem) - could anyone please advise me on any other software possibilities before I start pulling DIMMs etc?

Thanks,

Haydn.

*Iit's an old Athlon 1800+ with 768MB ram so it's probably about time it died... although my PII 300 still works fine ;P

Definitely sounds like dieing RAM - grab a live-CD with
Memtest on it and have a look.


Cheers,
Tink

Do you know of a comaparative util that can test CPU's and their cache?

Haydn.

p.s: I'll try memtest when I get home