Tracking Down a Single-Bit RAM Error

Hanji writes "We have discussed here before the potential effects of and protections against cosmic ray radiation, but for the average computer user, it's an obscure threat that doesn't affect them in any real way. Well, here's a blog post that describes a strange segfault and, after extensive debugging, traces it down to a single bit flip, probably caused by a stray cosmic ray. Lots of helpful descriptions of Linux debugging techniques in this one, and a pretty clear demonstration that this can be a real problem. I know I'm never buying a desktop without ECC RAM ever again!" The author acknowledges that it might not have been a cosmic ray-based error, but the troubleshooting steps are interesting no matter what the cause.

Comments

This would be important

[overshoot]

People don't realize that lead is mildly radioactive

That is an important consideration for old computers (prior to 2005 or so.) The newer ones are pretty much lead-free.

Very old processed lead, such as that used for the roofs of some European cathedrals, has been used to build supercomputers since more of the radioactivity has decayed.

Billions of years in the ground, and only a few centuries on the roof and all of the radioactivity is gone! Wow!