AMD testing

[Steve Gaudet]

Hello Don,


> I had a problem with a Tyan 2460 that I got when they first 
> came out. It 
> seems that the board actually only supports 3 memory modules 
> even though it 
> has 4 slots. (??!!) I had the board in a cluster with several 
> other Tyan 2462 
> board machines all with 4 256MB mem modules. We were doing 
> testing on the 
> system and the machine with the 2460 was giving garbage results for a 
> calculation that used about 700MB of memory. All smaller jobs 
> had tested OK. 
> I couldn't find the problem (went through different memory, 
> kernels etc..) 
> then I started thinking ... why does Tyan say the board only 
> supports 3GB of 
> memory ... sure enough, when I took 1 module out of the 2460 
> machine, it ran 
> the big test job correctly. I tested this on a newer order of 
> the mother 
> boards and they seemed to be OK. The markings on the 
> motherboard still say 
> "A" but it looks a little different, the old one had dots 
> around it. (?) I 
> don't know if this is an isolated problem, just a bad board 
> ... ??? However, 
> I have seen other complaints about memory problems with the 
> 2460. Also, I 
> discovered that the sockets are "REALLY" fussy about how you 
> insert the 
> modules. If you don't get them just right memtest86 will 
> generate errors on 
> the modules even though they test good on other boards.  I 
> assume you had 4 
> 512MB modules in your machine I suggest you try leaving DIMM4 
> empty and try 
> testing the system again.   
> 
> I let Tyan know about the problem but haven't received a response.

I've seen this problem before with Tyan motherboards.  A year ago we had the
same issue with the S2510NG ThunderLE, dual NIC, 4 MB ATI  Graphics, No
SCSI.  The problem was hardware related, you couldn't install anything in
the fourth memory slot and expect to see it.

My guess is its another hardware related problem.  I'd try smaller density
ram first and see if the fourth slot is working at all.

Cheers,

Steve Gaudet 
   ..... 
  <(©¿©)> 

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