Actually, I _have_ seen a computer act this way. Hope this helps.
We had a new computer in the office, a Cyrix M2/200 (really cheap these
days) that would spontaneously reboot for no apparent reason.
After much hair-pulling, I found out that the internal cache on the
processor was faulty, using memtest86 (on metalab.unc.edu).
Try disabling your cache (external, then internal) and see if you have the
same problems. Or, run memtest86 (i had to replace __inbc() with inb() in
mtest.c to get it to compile)
This can be a frustrating problem for a couple of reasons:
1) it may only affect one part of memory (thanks to associative caches),
which may not be in use unless you've got your system loaded down.
2) your cache may be borderline, and only experience problems under heavy
load.
Of course, having said that all, it could be the memory itself :)
Good luck,
Scott
On Sat, 2 Jan 1999, John Kennedy wrote:
<snip>
> I've never seen a CPU fail that way. If I had, I would have
> beaten on the individual CPUs a lot faster. I don't think it is
> overheating -- it is a 450MHz, but it isn't overclocked, has a
> working CPU fan, and I've added even more cooling to the case over
> the period of testing. The twin CPU has no trouble in the same
> environment, either.
>
> Has anyone else out there seen a CPU fail this way before?
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