Random core dumps, and misreading files

I gets random core dumps and and misreading of files. The chances for provoking there errors, increases with the amount of memory used.

With misreadings of files I mean eg. copy a large file then compare several times and get different answers each time.

I have seen this in kernels 2.4.4-7, in both 1GB and 4GB settings, and using kgcc and gcc-2.96-69.

The HW is AMD Athlon 1100, 1.5GB memory, VIA Apollo KT133 chipset.

I have used a memory test program, which ran without any problems!
- memtest: http://www.qcc.sk.ca/~charlesc/software/memtester/
version is v.2.93.1 by Charles Cazabon <[email protected]> dynamic version (libc.so.6 and ld-linux.so.2) (28/12/2000)

Good ways to provoke the error is to create a couple of ~2GB files, the files have to get in and out of the file system cache, in order to go different.

Error scenario:
% cmp clout010629part001.dump.gz clout010629part001.dump.2.gz clout010629part001.dump.gz clout010629part001.dump.2.gz differ: char 2351101, line 7984 % gunzip -vt clout010629part001.dump.2.gz &
% gunzip -vt clout010629part001.dump.gz&
gunzip: clout010629part001.dump.2.gz: invalid compressed data--crc error
[3] Done gunzip -vt clout010629part001.dump.gz
[2] - Exit 1 gunzip -vt clout010629part001.dump.2.gz
% cmp clout010629part001.dump.gz clout010629part001.dump.2.gz clout010629part001.dump.gz clout010629part001.dump.2.gz differ: char 1253855229, line 4124979 % cmp clout010629part001.dump.gz clout010629part001.dump.2.gz
cmp: clout010629part001.dump.gz: Input/output error
% gunzip -vt clout010629part001.dump.2.gz
clout010629part001.dump.2.gz: OK
% gunzip -vt clout010629part001.dump.gz
clout010629part001.dump.gz: OK
% cmp clout010629part001.dump.gz clout010629part001.dump.2.gz
% gunzip -tv clout010629part001.dump.2.gz &
% gunzip -tv clout010629part001.dump.gz &
gunzip: clout010629part001.dump.2.gz: invalid compressed data--crc error
gunzip: clout010629part001.dump.gz: invalid compressed data--crc error
gunzip: clout010629part001.dump.gz: invalid compressed data--length error
%

A zap from top during these tests:

% top

    1:44pm  up 2 days, 22:04,  6 users,  load average: 2.03, 1.22, 0.81

205 processes: 202 sleeping, 3 running, 0 zombie, 0 stopped CPU states: 13.3% user, 37.3% system, 0.0% nice, 49.3% idle
Mem: 899996K av, 896940K used, 3056K free, 0K shrd, 3556K buff
Swap: 5210256K av, 224132K used, 4986124K free 851892K cached

  PID USER     PRI  NI  SIZE  RSS SHARE STAT %CPU %MEM   TIME COMMAND
 9290 kib       18   0   352  352   288 R    25.2  0.0   0:20 cmp
 9289 kib       19   0   384  384   316 D    21.6  0.0   0:17 diff

I am available for further tests, and requests for more info.

Best Regards,
Kim Bisgaard