> Martin von Loewis <martin@mira.isdn.cs.tu-berlin.de> writes:
>
> > When compiling a kernel, it reported an error in a file that compiled
> > fine twenty minutes ago. When looking at the source, I see that 4 bytes
> > are magically changed, so I suspect the buffers were corrupted. The
> > corrupted word was at offset 13300 of the file. I'm running
> > 2.1.81+linux-2.1.81.diff.gz. There were no syslog reports.
> >
> > It might be a hardware problem, I did not run any analysis tool yet.
> > The machine is a AMD 486 with 40MB memory, an Adaptec 2940 controller
^^^^^^^^^^^^
I'll almost guarantee that the 2940 is to blame. I had the exact same
symptoms here on one of my machines, and went through the same exercises
you have - with the same inconclusive results. Finally, I replaced it
with a $50 Symbios/NCR card and haven't had a single glitch since.
Some of the older 2940's had chipset problems, IMHO.
The embedded 2940AUW in my 6x86 box has never shown any such problems, so
it's definitely particular to certain revs of their phase-engine chip.
Steve