[Gllug] Diagnosing hardware faults

[Nix]

On 28 Nov 2010, John Hearns stated:
> If you want to stress test a machine, a loop of running a linux kernel
> compile endlessly is a pretty good one. Will get the processor hot.

I still swear by a GCC bootstrap-and-test. Kernel compiles check for
pointer-chasing in the compiler, but single-bit flips elsewhere which
merely lead to bad code will not be caught. Because a GCC bootstrap
builds the compiler with itself three times and tests the result, it
tends to find problems more effectively. (I've had RAM problems in the
past which only manifested themselves by a change in GCC test results
between a good machine and a bad one. The bad one's results were even
consistent between runs: just different from the good machine's.)
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