[ale] Losing stability

Matt Kubilus mattkubilus at gmail.com
Mon Oct 30 13:28:09 EST 2006


To prove a systems accuracy you will generally measure four things:

  * True positives - The system says it is so, and the system is correct
  * False positives - The system says it is so, and the system is wrong
  * True negatives - The system says it is not so, and the system is correct
  * False negatives - The system says it is not so, and the system is wrong

If RAM failure is the positive condition then memtest86 can be said to
have a high rate of false negatives.  Or so a system auditor might
say.  The company I used to work for was regulated by the FDA.  Any
new software & hardware systems would have to meet certain reliability
requirements defined as above; in other words, a huge pain in the
rear.

Good luck getting your system back up!

-Matt


On 10/30/06, Jim Popovitch <jimpop at yahoo.com> wrote:
> On Mon, 2006-10-30 at 12:50 -0500, Matt Kubilus wrote:
> > memtest86 is only really useful to prove that the memory is bad, not
> > that the memory is good.
>
> It's orientation is binary, right?  If not bad, then good.  Or am I
> missing something?
>
> -Jim P.
>
>
>
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-- 
Don't be a pioneeer.  A pioneer is the guy with the arrow through his
chest.  -- John J. Rakos



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