Hardware bitflipping

re: Hardware bitflipping

Ralph Gifford — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 23:00:45 GMT

Very interesting. I have issue with my wifes PC and would want to try this fix on that.

re: Hardware bitflipping

Bender — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 14:31:27 GMT

Very nice article. Good thing that hardware issues can also be diagnosed with a memory test like the Vista integrated or memtest86+. Good news for the non-kernel debugger enlightened users like me :)

NTDebugging Puzzler 0x00000004: This didn’t puzzle the Debug Ninja, how about you?

Microsoft Advanced Windows Debugging and Troubleshooting — Fri, 02 May 2008 16:49:51 GMT

Hello NTDebuggers, we have been very impressed with the responses we’ve gotten to our previous puzzlers

2009 Q1 link clearance: Microsoft blogger edition

The Old New Thing — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 19:56:26 GMT

From elsewhere in the collective.

re: Hardware bitflipping

Igor Levicki — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 07:03:17 GMT

Strange way of approaching the troubleshooting.

I would have booted into DOS and used goldmen or memtest86+ to check for memory errors -- that would catch the bit without any of the above brainstorming over a crash dump being required.

Furthermore, you usually do not add RAM sticks with different timings, bank sizes, or voltage requirements to the system -- if you can't find the same RAM you pull the old one out.

2.1V is probably not neccessary unless it is a higher clocked / high performance DDR2 memory, better check the specification, RAM can overheat and the BIOS can enable thermal throttling so the system might run slower with more voltage than neccessary.

Finally, if they installed 4 RAM sticks instead of 2 then the "solution" of rising voltage might have to do with RAM but with crappy mainboard and northbridge which aren't able to supply enough "juice" to drive all 4 memory modules.

In any case, I would try running goldmem and memtest86+ at 1.9v, 1.95v, etc until I find the minimum voltage at which the system is stable.

re: Hardware bitflipping

wolf550e — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 13:51:38 GMT

memtest86 should be able to diagnose such a problem, without digging into windows.

re: Hardware bitflipping

David Soussan — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 18:50:03 GMT

This is exactly the kind of walk-through that teaches tips and techniques everyone computer literate and in charge of designing, building, and supporting systems should add to their tool belt. I want to say that this hasn't helped me resolve a problem right now, but adding skills is always a good thing. But there isn't a 'not yet' button.

When I press the shiny green button for "Did this blog post help you resolve a problem?", I get an error:

500 - Internal server error.

There is a problem with the resource you are looking for, and it cannot be displayed.

Keep these articles coming!

And yes, memory testing programs can and do find problems. But I've seen strange errors that testing programs don't find but operating systems, applications, and games do find. Ask me about the 6502 add bug sometime... (showing my gray hair)