[syslinux] Memory upgrade breaks net boot (PXE + NFS Root)

[Curtis Doty]

9:20am H. Peter Anvin said:

> Alex Still wrote:
> >>
> > I was unclear,  "no other hardware",  meant I only have LS21 blades. But all
> > 40 of them fail in the exact same way ;)
> > memtest86+ didn't find anything on the 3 blades I tried it on.
> > 
> > Now, further tests show that pxe booting a fedora 6 install kernel/initrd
> > works just fine.
> > (using the same pxelinux.0 on the same TFTP server)
> > So I guess the problem is with our kernel.  The thing I don't understand is
> > why it sometimes reboots before it is even done downloading the initrd.
> > 
> > Back to testing !
> > 
> 
> How utterly bizarre...
> 

Unfortunately, I've had similar results where memtest86+ failed to detect 
any errors, but a specific memory stick was at fault. I'm only guessing it 
was a combination of memory access with rapidly firing interrupts from the 
network card or backplane during boot. In the end, the only way to 
identify faulty DIMM was good ol' trial-and-error elimination testing.

../C