Memory diagnostic software?

Archived from groups: comp.sys.palmtops.pilot (More info?)

Is there memory diagnostic software available for Treo 650?

This unit suddenly started crashing many times per day with "chunk
over-locked", usually in MMNotify, sometimes Launcher or rarely other
built-in apps. Web searches tell me this has happened to others and they
believed it to be hardware failure. I am hoping there's some diagnostic
which I can run before I go in to argue with the Sprint people about
replacing it, so I can pre-empt any argument on their part.

Archived from groups: comp.sys.palmtops.pilot (More info?)

Jeff Van Epps wrote:
> Is there memory diagnostic software available for Treo 650?
>
> This unit suddenly started crashing many times per day with "chunk
> over-locked",

To me, sounds like a software problem and not a hardware one.

On the Palm, you can allocate a chunk of memory that the operating
system is free to relocate if it needs to rearrange the contents of
memory (to reduce fragmentation, for example). When you want to
actually do something with that memory, you must lock it in place
so that the operating system doesn't try to move it while you're
using it.

But, there is a limit to how many locks you can have on a single
chunk of memory. I forget what the limit is, but I think it's 15.
If you lock the memory at 16th time (or whatever the limit is, if
you go over it), then the operating system will put up a diagnostic
message to that effect and reset. (There is nothing else, really,
that's safe for it to do but reset -- from that point on, it never
really knows whether the memory should be locked or unlocked.)

As far as I know, the only way this is a hardware problem is if
the flash memory has caused an error in a program, and the error
just happens to allow the program to run but luck some chunk of
memory too many times accidentally. But for it to get to that
point, the handle to the chunk of memory that it's accidentally
locking would have to be a valid handle, which is quite unlikely.
So, while in theory it could be hardware problem, it seems way
more likely that it's a software problem.

As for how the software got into that state, I couldn't say that
for sure. But, I would try doing a hard reset and seeing what
happens after that. This type of reset puts the system back like
it was when you got it from the factory (so be sure to hotsync
first to save all your data!). If it's a software problem,
hopefully that type of reset will let you run in a clean state
for a while to determine whether the system works if it's in the
factor default configuration. (You probably DON'T want to
hotsync after the hard reset for a while -- if you restore your
data to the device, you'd spoil the test of whether the device
itself can run.)

- Logan

Archived from groups: comp.sys.palmtops.pilot (More info?)

nobody@lordbah.com aszonygya:
:This unit suddenly started crashing many times per day with "chunk
ver-locked", usually in MMNotify, sometimes Launcher or rarely other
:built-in apps. Web searches tell me this has happened to others and they
:believed it to be hardware failure. I am hoping there's some diagnostic
:which I can run before I go in to argue with the Sprint people about
:replacing it, so I can pre-empt any argument on their part.

This is not a hardware failure but a software bug. get rid of the defective
application[s], then do a restet, and you'll be fine. Unfortunataly there are
quite a few buggy apps out. /PaulN