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Hard Shutdown/Power Off +Correctable ECC Errors First Pass of Tests 0, 1, 2

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  • Hard Shutdown/Power Off +Correctable ECC Errors First Pass of Tests 0, 1, 2

    Just a heads up to folks out there that may get thrown off down a self-inflicted/to be expected rabbit trail, yet I hadn't seen anyone warn of it anywhere on the web so I thought I'd mention it.

    I have a pair of Workstations with latest BIOS and 4x8GB unregistered ECC memory in them. The units can pass MemTest 8.1 all day so long as they are clean booted after 30 minutes of being powered off or rebooted.

    If the units are hard powered off -> powered back on within seconds -> run MemTest. MemTest reports a dozen reproducible correctable ECC errors on the first pass of MemTest and all subsequent passes are error free.

    If the units are hard powered off -> powered back on five minutes later -> run MemTest. MemTest reports half dozen reproducible correctable ECC errors on the first pass of MemTest and all subsequent passes are error free.

    If the units are hard powered off -> powered back on thirty minutes later -> run MemTest. MemTest reports a zero errors.

    If I run HP's BIOS memory diagnostic immediately following a hard reset it passes error free (likely doesn't bother to report correctable ECC errors?)

    A couple reasons folks may inadvertently get sucked into these false positives is if they were toying in the BIOS -> hard power off -> test minutes later. MemTest itself doesn't have a "shutdown" option. It only has "reset," so sometimes I'll hard power off a unit to prevent the unit from fully POSTing again/an unwanted boot of the Operating System.

  • #2
    Maybe the memory contents are not being cleared on boot and there is some capacitance in the system that allows the RAM to keep being powered for a while after power down.

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    • #3
      David That's what I figured and that sounds totally reasonable to me. Akin to the flea power LED on the motherboard not going off until XYZ capacitors drain. I just have to laugh because at first I was confused and thought I had suspect RAM with intermittent problems until I noticed what was really going on. Cheers.

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