Memtest with serial port

When new hardware was aquired recently that only had a serial port to communicate one of the first things that was done to give the machine a memory test. Installed vyatta first and then added memtest86+ from the debian repository:

apt-get install memtest86+

Turns out the version in the lenny repository is ancient. So I downloaded the version available in sid:

cd /tmp

wget http://mirrors.kernel.org/debian/pool/main/m/memtest86+/memtest86+_4.10-1_i386.deb

dpkg -i memtest86+_4.10-1_i386.deb

At this moment I got bitten by a grub-pc problem: Setting up memtest86+ (2.01-1.1) ... grub-probe: error: cannot find a device for /. This seems to be a known long standing problem in debian.

I decided not to try and solve problem dozen of people are working on.

I unpacked the memtest binary myself:

dpkg -x memtest86+_4.10-1_i386.deb cp boot/memtest86+.bin /boot/

Then I added the following to the /boot/grub/grub.cfg menuentry "memtest86+" { root (hd0,0) linux /boot/memtest86+.bin console=ttyS0,115200n8 } Only add the last part when have a serial console (like i do) By omitting this it will use the built-in video card

Don't forget to cleanup the mess: cd /tmp rm -rf *deb usr etc boot Reboot and choose memtest from the bootmenu.

ASCII capture from the serial console looks like this: Memtest86+ v4.10     | Pass 67% ########################## Atom (0.045) 1667 MHz      | Test 48% ################## L1 Cache:  24K  20576 MB/s | Test #6  [Moving inversions, 32 bit pattern] L2 Cache: 512K  13021 MB/s | Testing:  188K - 2039M 2038M L3 Cache:      None        | Pattern:   fff7ffff Memory : 2038M   1986 MB/s |- Chipset :

WallTime  Cached  RsvdMem   MemMap   Cache  ECC  Test  Pass  Errors ECC Errs - --  ---    -  ---      --    1:14:50   2038M     200K    e820      on   off   Std     1       0 -

Memory SPD Informations --- - Slot 0 : 2048 MB DDR2-400 - Transcend Information TS256MSQ64V8U