More on interleaved memory, high-speed processors and system crashes

Daryl Cornutt writes that he had a problem with a Power Computing Power Tower Pro 200 that would display a black screen at startup on a cold boot (but would restart okay on a warm boot). A tech support person gave him several possible causes. The most common cause cited was defective RAM (or RAM of the wrong speed). Of particular interest, it was noted that, with high speed processors (such as the 200MHz machine here), the problem RAM may still work okay until you get the final speed boost due to interleaving the RAM. Replacing the RAM solved the problem for Daryl.

Another possible cause was the timing problem cited in a item here last time. Again, interleaving the memory was often the "straw" that finally caused the symptom to appear.