[Gllug] Good up-to-date distro for mini-ITX?

[Julian Somers]

On 17:19 Thu 22 Jun     , Rich Walker wrote:
> Julian Somers <lists at bigpip.com> writes:
> 
> >
> > I have just remembered that we have had RAM failure in almost every one
> > of our EPIA PD series machines.
> >
> > I assumed that it was a bad batch of RAM, or sloppy assembly.
> >
> > But, is there any way that running an i586 kernel on these C3 CPUs might
> > have been cooking the RAM? 
> 
> Unlikely, I'd've thought.
> 
> Of course, not enabling the power saving features of the CPU because you
> didn't have the drivers - that might cause problems.

I do have "CPU Frequency scaling" disabled in the kernel. I
wasn't aware this was a bad thing (apart from the waste of power). Is
this the power saving feature that might cause problems? 

Is there anything else, in general, that can damage RAM? I am becoming
more worried that it's finger-trouble causing this hardware failure,
because:

- We have five times the number of EPIA-Ms as EPIA-PDs. 
- 90% of the EPIA-PDs have had RAM replaced. 0% of the EPIA-Ms have had
  RAM replaced. 
- The EPIA-Ms are in ships, (usually in hot, unventilated, vibrating
  cupboards), and they work hard. 
- The EPIA-PDs are in a cool server room, and do practically no work
  (multicast routers).
- They were all built at the same bench, by the same person. 

By the way, this batch of C3s do have cmov, so I guess I could try i686.

*-cpu
  description: CPU
  product: VIA Nehemiah
  vendor: CentaurHauls
  physical id: 4
  bus info: cpu at 0
  version: VIA C3
  slot: Socket 370
  size: 1GHz
  capacity: 1GHz
  width: 32 bits
  clock: 133MHz
  capabilities: fpu fpu_exception wp vme de pse tsc msr cx8 sep mtrr 
	  pge cmov pat mmx fxsr sse rng rng_en ace ace_en
															     
thanks, Julian

> cheers, Rich.
> 
> -- 
> rich walker         |  Shadow Robot Company | rw at shadow.org.uk
> technical director     251 Liverpool Road   |
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-- 

Julian Somers
+44 208 265 5407
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