Reliable Memory Technology problem

Question

Hi

My 5820 suddenly started announcing on boot that the RMT system had found a problem and isolated the affected area. I decided to replace the memory chip with another I already had but there is a problem locating the affected DIMM. The Dell article on doing this says to find the appropriate entry in the BIOS System Logs menu and then

Select Dell Reliable Memory Technology Events from the System Logs sub-menu

Problem is I don't have that in the sub menu! The only sub menu entry I have is BIOS Events. So I can't see which DIMM is the problem as Dell describe it. The BIOS log details the times the RMT problems happened but not enough else. RMT is enabled in BIOS and I can't see anything else wrong.

The full instructions are here:
https://www.dell.com/support/kbdoc/en-uk/000064540/precision-workstations-where-do-i-look-for-dell-reliable-memory-technology-rmt-errors-to-confirm-memory-issues-and-locations?lang=en&ref=supp_lithium

Thanks for any help.

Also are there any restrictions on adding memory in term of matching capacities across slots etc?

TIA for any help.

mazzinia_ · Answer

The dimm should be the same model/capacity and ideally brand

tony599 · Answer

I assume that answer is for the faulty DIMM that I don't know the location of currently? TB

mazzinia_ · Answer

yes   The following table illustrates the memory configuration and population rules for the Dell Precision Tower 5820:    NOTE: 32 GB DIMMs are only supported on systems using Xeon W Series CPUs.

tony599 · Answer

Sorry only just seen this as I had been working with a Dell technician privately last week.

Never discovered why I don't have the menu entry that tells me which DIMM it is and every memory test I ran failed to find anything. In the end it was a matter of pulling all the DIMMs out and replacing them one by one until the RMT error came up. Turned out to be a 16GB one so replaced it with the spare I had and all has been well since.

Also the machine had become unreliable with weird behavior and app crashes such as trying to writing to protected memory. That was before the RMT error came up and I had restarted it many times before.

I would like to know why I don't have the BIOS menu entry though as that would have saved a lot of wasted time solving this....

mazzinia_ · Answer

Glad that you got it solved.

Actually what's weird is that the dimm is not "turned" off by the bios. My older xeon ( different brand ) had a dimm fail while in windows and i realized it only weeks later. It simply isolated it live.and then turned it off

Precision Fixed Workstations

Reliable Memory Technology problem

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