[lug] Odd mixing of SIMM modules causing boot failure

[Nick Golder]

On 03-02-27 09:55 -0700, the infamous Warren Sanders uttered:
> As stated, this weekend I wanted to upgrade my P200MMX 48MB 72 pin DRAM (2
> 8MB and 2 16MB FPM).  I replaced the 8MB modules with a couple 16MB *EDO*.
> The system recognized the configuration, but my Red Hat 7.2 using GRUB came
> in black and white... and then it had a kernel panic reporting the
> "root=/dev/hda3" label was messed up or not found bootable.
> 
> I then assumed that my recent kernel upgrade had been corrupt and only
> survived one boot.  Needless to say, I had already axed the other installed
> kernels.  I made a similar mistake before by removing kernels before
> rebooting, but this wasn't the case.  In the past I had removed the drive
> and mounted it on another system to get the kernel reinstalled.  I was about
> to attempt this again when I decided to boot with this drive and noticed it
> was a color GRUB screen and knew right away that it was going to work now.
> 
> So placing it back in the original troubled system, I had the b/w Grub
> screen again.  What did I change before this happened?  Well I never would
> have thought mixing FPM with EDO would cause such a SNAFU!  Placing the old
> 8MB FPM modules back proved it correct.
> 
> Now I have heard many DON'Ts on using SIMMS and SDRAM but not much on FPM
> and EDO.  Regardless, my system did recognize it and Linux didn't report
> memory related problems; just boot partition problems!
> 
> Any thoughts?
> 
> Cheers,
> -- 
> Warren Sanders
> http://MontanaLinux.Org
> 
> 

Had the same problems some years back.  Turned off the EDO capabilities
in the BIOS and that took care of the problem.  Turned out to be a
problem with bus throttling from the CPU to the RAM.
HTH
Now that I think about it, it was six years ago.

-- 
-Nick Golder
http://www.hiveportal.net