Half of my RAM died
I got up early in the morning today determined to do something productive today. So I got into my office at MSU, started booting my laptop, logged into the JDS workstation and fired up Firefox to check my bloglines, gmail and twitter.
I use the JDS machine for most of the coding, running tests and browsing the web because it is lightning fast. Unfortunately JDS sucks, and there are virtually no binaries for it available anywhere. So if I don’t compile it from source, it won’t be running on that machine.
My Kubuntu laptop on the other hand is and ancient 700 MHz machine with 512 MB of RAM but it does have Kile which I use to write my thesis. As I was bullshitting online the laptop came up, so I logged in, and pulled up KMail. And then it froze. And I don’t mean a mild X freeze here. It was a complete, windows style freeze. Not even a kernel panic or anything. It just stopped and sat there. I had to power it down to regain control. I was stunned.
This was probably the first time this machine froze on me like this since I installed linux on it few years ago. I rebooted it and Grub came up fine. Then I got spammed with bunch of “Memory Read Error” messages, but the boot sequence didn’t stop, and went all the way into X. I logged in again, watched KDE load and then pulled up an xterm to see what was going on. Damn thing froze again. I rebooted again with the exact same results. So I decided to pull out one of the DIMMs and see if that helps:
Funny thing is, the first one that I pulled out turned out the be the faulty one. Here it is:
My machine booted just fine, and I could use it with no other problems. Other than running with half of the memory of course. Surprisingly enough KDE was still relatively usable with only 256 MB of RAM. Running just KMail and Kile was fine. When I fired up Firefox, SVN client and couple of xterms things started becoming really slow though.
My old and slow laptop just became even slower. I guess I have to order a new DIMM from Dell… I wonder if they even sell them for my model. Dell Inspiron 4000 from before the ubiquitous broadband access era - it has a win-modem but no eathernet card on the mobo. Anyone still has one of those?
I think someone up there is trying to tell me it’s time for a new laptop. Yup, that’s what it is - it’s a sign that I need to buy a MacBook. 
Awesome! I found a 256 MB chip in my “memory I will never, ever use” box. It was sitting there along with about 20 64MB chips, and bunch of 128 MB’s. I never know what to do with these things.
Back in business. I’m still treating this as a sign to get a MacBook though.
Related Posts:
April 2nd, 2007 at 5:07 am (3684) [Quote]
That’s too bad about the RAM… but perhaps it’s a a good thing too - Macbooks are great laptops
Posted usingApril 2nd, 2007 at 8:52 am (3686) [Quote]
RAM is model-specific?
Posted usingApril 2nd, 2007 at 9:28 am (3687) [Quote]
Matt` said:
Well, no… But it is an old mobo and it takes big, clunky chips like the one in the picture. A 1GB chip that I installed in a new latitude the other day was about half that size.
I actually found a 256 MB chip in my “memory I will never, ever use” box. It was sitting there along with about 20 64MB chips, and bunch of 128 MB’s.
Posted usingApril 2nd, 2007 at 9:41 am (3688) [Quote]
Darn good thing you aren’t running Vista!
Gotta love Linux and it’s ability to change on the fly.
If you decide on the MacBook, make sure you have at least 1 Gig of RAM. the 512 Meg is fine unless you run PPC binaries. Rosetta sucks a lot of resources. Then again, I can see you putting Ubuntu on there . . .
Posted usingApril 2nd, 2007 at 10:11 am (3689) [Quote]
Yup, I’m definitely getting at least 1 Gig. Last time I checked 2 Gigs was an option I think, so I would probably get that.
I probably wouldn’t put Ubuntu on it though. I want to play around with OS X a little bit. Also, Ubuntu is a kick ass desktop system, but is still kinda flaky with the Laptop specific stuff like ACPI (suspend, hibernate), wifi and etc.
Posted usingApril 2nd, 2007 at 2:18 pm (3690) [Quote]
:) I am running vista Craig.
Its not like the most wonderful thing known to man, but it is beautiful.. and beauty is THE ONLY reason i upgraded.. I missed all the comfert of my old mac… and now I *KINDA* get that back
Oh yeah defiantly get a macbook
Posted usingApril 2nd, 2007 at 4:57 pm (3698) [Quote]
:) You know Luke, your a good looking guy, you should show your pictures more often.
Posted usingApril 2nd, 2007 at 10:25 pm (3703) [Quote]
Hey poodle, if you are desperate I have the old Dell 8300 that is acting like a paperweight. It is the one with the brand new hard drive, remember? It works fine, it’s just a bit slow ’cause I installed way too much stuff on it (photoshop, frontpage, office, etc, etc, etc.) and it gives me a couple of errors on start up I don’t know what to do about. I’m sure you’d be able to fix it up straight away though.
You are welcome to it if you promise to strip all the saved passwords and stuff I have on it. Only reason I am not getting rid of it is because I don’t want people data mining in there and finding stuff they shouldn’t.
Posted usingApril 2nd, 2007 at 10:34 pm (3704) [Quote]
Wow luke, you bring the best out of people.. the most I got from anyone is a sieze and dissist letter from the RIAA
apparently they didn’t like http://music.geeksparadox.com/personal/ that too much
Posted usingApril 2nd, 2007 at 10:43 pm (3705) [Quote]
Un4scene - if you have no use for it, I’ll take it. Is it the Dimension 8300? That’s still a pretty decent machine. I’ll shoot you an email.
Travis - I can kinda see how RIAA would be upset about that. Oh man, you better watch out - you are on their list now.
Posted usingApril 2nd, 2007 at 10:52 pm (3706) [Quote]
Stage 1: Start a blog
Stage 2: ???
Stage 3: Profit!
(profit in the form of computers)
Posted usingApril 2nd, 2007 at 11:10 pm (3707) [Quote]
Btw - just to clarify, me and un4scene have been friends forever. Not that I wouldn’t accept cool gifts from total strangers of course.
Also, un4scene is the most awesome person in life. It’s a fact.
Posted usingApril 2nd, 2007 at 11:13 pm (3708) [Quote]
I was getting the feeling he knew you pretty much from when he called you poodle and onwards
..the part with the computer-giving was fairly conclusive too
New plan:
Posted usingStage 1: make friends with generous computer-owners
Stage 2: ???
Stage 3: Profit!
April 2nd, 2007 at 11:18 pm (3709) [Quote]
Got your email, poodle. Responding to you with system info…
Btw, I used this icon today in your honor.
Posted usingApril 2nd, 2007 at 11:33 pm (3710) [Quote]
Actually, he is a she. Only ladies are allowed to call me poodle.
I can’t see the icon. I get a “Forbidden” page when I click the link.
Posted usingApril 2nd, 2007 at 11:43 pm (3711) [Quote]
Ah, never mind. I had to log into LJ. Here is the icon:
Futurama FTW!
Posted using