mail-complaints-to="news_AT_tioat_DOT_net"   
   From: "Doug Bissett"    
      
   On Sat, 27 Nov 2010 11:57:17 UTC, Lars Erdmann    
   wrote:   
      
   > Doug Bissett wrote:   
   > > On Fri, 26 Nov 2010 07:28:07 UTC, Lars Erdmann   
   > > wrote:   
   > >   
   > >> It is so cheap, I think it does   
   > >> not even have the ECC feature.   
   > >   
   > > 99% of the memory that exists, in modern hardware, doesn't have the   
   > > ECC feature. Memory, today, is reliable enough that it is not needed,   
   > > and the only reason to actually use ECC memory is for "mission   
   > > critical" applications (life support systems etc.). The really cheap   
   > > memory would not have the parity bit, but memory is cheap enough now,   
   > > that I doubt if you could find such a thing.   
   > Ok, did not know that.   
   >    
   > > On the other hand, I am somewhat surprised that a machine would serve   
   > > up a parity error, because the BIOS startup, even without the extended   
   > > memory test, is supposed to write a pattern to the memory, before it   
   > > boots.   
   > >   
   > Yes, but if "Quick Power On Self Test" is enabled it will only do that   
   > for the DOS relevant memory region of <= 1MB.   
   > If you disable, it will do that for the whole memory (supposedly).   
   >    
   >    
   > Lars   
      
   I am pretty sure that the BIOS is supposed to write good data through    
   all of memory, even if you do the quick test. The reason for doing    
   that, is to prevent exactly what you are describing. There may be many   
   reasons why the BIOS may not clean all memory, or, you may have a bad    
   memory chip in there somewhere. Then it is possible that the    
   manufacturer was attempting to speed up boot, and dropped that from    
   the BIOS (poor decision, if they did).   
      
   I am also under the impression that OS/2 itself initializes all of    
   memory during boot, so you should never see that sort of thing anyway.   
      
   I think I would find a memory test program, and see what it has to say   
   about the problem.   
      
   --    
   From the eComStation of Doug Bissett   
   dougb007 at telus dot net   
   (Please make the obvious changes, to e-mail me)   
      
      
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