Error allocation RAM fail on V1036 and V1036.0004

[GI Wan]

Hi ,

We only found the error allocation RMA fail on 2G RAM/2 Slots <Total 4G RAM> , and the program edition is after v1036 , BTW , if we don't test 2D item then if will pass , some experiments data for you reference as follows , any suggestion for us about this issue ?

Change the memory size :
a.1G RAM * 2 Slots => PASS
b. 2G RAM * 1 Slot (high slot) => PASS
c. 2G RAM * 1 Slot (lower slot) => PASS
d. 2G RAM * 2 Slots => FAIL

The bad unit run on different editions of bit.exe
1. BurnIn Test V5.3 Build 1012 => Pass
2. BurnIn Test V5.3 Build 1026 => Pass
3. BurnIn Test V5.3 Build 1036 => FAIL
4. BurnIn Test V5.3 Build 1036.0004 => FAIL

The detail log file
LOG NOTE: 2009-01-16 13:05:47, RAM, Current allocation:100000
Additional:416259278
SERIOUS : 2009-01-16 13:05:51, RAM, Error allocating RAM
LOG NOTE: 2009-01-16 13:05:51, RAM, Current allocation:100000
Additional:409414862
SERIOUS : 2009-01-16 13:05:54, RAM, Error allocating RAM
LOG NOTE: 2009-01-16 13:05:54, RAM, Current allocation:100000
Additional:405277902
SERIOUS : 2009-01-16 13:05:57, RAM, Error allocating RAM
LOG NOTE: 2009-01-16 13:05:57, RAM, Current allocation:100000
Additional:406404302
SERIOUS : 2009-01-16 13:06:00, RAM, Error allocating RAM
LOG NOTE: 2009-01-16 13:06:00, RAM, Current allocation:100000
Additional:406486222
SERIOUS : 2009-01-16 13:06:03, RAM, Error allocating RAM

[David (PassMark)]

This is not a hardware failure. It is a problem of virtual address space fragmentation. When a lot of physical RAM is available (as above) BurnInTest attempts to allocate a large chunk of RAM. But the attempts to allocate large chunks of RAM fail due to the virtual address space being small and fragmentation.

V5 of BurnInTest was created a few years ago when pretty much nobody had 4GB of RAM and virtual addresss space always exceeded physical RAM. Now the opposite is common. Physical RAM often exceeds virtual memory (which is only 2GB in Windows 32bit). And it causes problems like this.

V6 of BurnInTest will contain an new method of allocating RAM which we hope should avoid problems like this.

V6 of BurnInTest will be available next week.