New M6500 Discussion Thread

One year ago, I tested memtest with samsung and crucial memory. (4*2G modules) I was not sure if it was an issue from my memory or from the motherboard but I got always the same kind of error from memtest. (test n°2 if I remember well) Is it the case for you?

 

Awesome, thanks!

So, I'm running Debian Sid, kernel 3.0.0 vanilla, I can provide you the .config if you wish.
For testing I'm using memtest86+ 4.20-1, while as OS memtester i was using memtester 4.2.2-1.

Your memory setup is pretty much different from mine, I was using four identical
4G 1333 modules, or 2+2 still 4G 1333 but different brands. But who knows, if you are experiencing freezes maybe that's not making any difference.

So to summarize, as long as I have only two modules in slots A and B, no matter how much I stress the system everything is shiny and stable.
As soon as I add a third (C), or both (C) and the fourth (D) module, some memory starts to fail at some point.
Be sure to force the OS to swap out a bit, otherwise you are not likely to really test all the address range. I was testing with a handful of open applications, which were accounting some 2.5G, so with 16G i was asking memtester (on different runs) to work on 14500MB up to 15500, with 12G I tested 10500 up to 11500 and with 8 up to 6.5/7.5 gigs.

Thanks and good luck!

 

I don't quite remember if it was the 1 or 2. In both cases, looking at memtest86 documentation, the test consists in writing down for each cell it's own address and checking it up, first sequentially (1) then in parallel (2). In any case a failure here is a major screwup, can't be addressed as cell interference or particularly unlucky pattern sequences, which might be due to minor hardware incompatibility...

 

memtester has been running for about 7 hours on my M6500 now and completed 6 iterations. So far no error occured.
Can you please try to reproduce your problem with Squeeze amd64? The Live CD should do:
Debian -- Live install images

 

Interesting!
And are you experiencing freezes, in general?

I'll do the tests again with the live as soon as possible this week.

 

Never.
(10 chars)

 

Cool. Your system is running at 1066, as three out of four modules are of that kind. This might mean we have a problem when running at 1333, but 1066 is fine...
With only two 1333 modules I'm never having troubles, while with more than 2 i got freezes and ram corruption. I'll do the tests with the live neverthless, just to be sure. Thanks anyway!

 

When buying my M6500 I figured that memory speed will not be my bottleneck. So I just saved some money by ordering 2x2GB@1066MHz and adding the two 4GB modules later. I replaced one of the 2GB modules with a 1GB module because I needed 2GB in a netbook which came with 1GB@1333MHz only and the M6500 was my only DDR3 supply.
I rarely need more than 9GB so downgrading from 12GB was not an issue. I'd like to point out that only 10 of my installed 11GB are actually used. It seems like the M6500 can't use the upper 1GB of the 2GB module when it is paired with a 1GB module.

Edit:
I'm not sure but maybe there is an option in the BIOS to lock the memory speed to 1066MHz even if all your modules support 1333MHz. Might be worth a try.

 

Unfortunately there is not, I've been searching for that myself to rule out even this possibility but those laptops bioses are pretty much... how to say... restrictive.

 

On My M6500 running Windows XP 32bit;

When opening "Device Manager", I have Yellow ! on "1394 Net Adapter #2".

Device Status: "This device cannot start. (Code 10)"

Device Type: Network adapter

Manufacture: Microsoft

Location: on Texas Instruments OHCI Compliant IEEE 1394 Host Controller

Have tried to Uninstall, reinstall, upgrade drives, etc, still have the Yellow !.

Any ideas how to resolve?

Thank You

Joseph