Re: [tlug] [solved?] apparent hardware problem(s) -- but where?

[BALUTA Chris <baluta@example.com>]

 Re: "My system keeps rebooting/locking up...memtest fails...etc."

     First, a thank you to the responses. Lots of good
ideas. 

     My problem appears to have been solved, though I won't
know for sure until I've run the system, and played around for
a few days. Plus, there are a few quirks that I feel are a
little ominous (though I am a hardware noob...).

     The solution(s):  I switched my SDRAM from its original
slot to another slot and then, after some cursor weirdness,
switched the mouse to another usb port.

     Before making these switches, memtest again failed, only
this time it failed a little more interestingly than previous
fails: Instead of the usual address failures written as,
eg, 000CCxEe8842.., included amongst the digits and numbers
were also strange characters -- arrows, sideways triangles,
and musical notes. That hadn't happened before.

     After making the SDRAM switch, memtest ran successfully multiple
times on multiple reboots. This was big progress as over the
two weeks or so that I'd run memtest many times, I'd only had
two or perhaps three successes. 100% success this time.

     The system then worked fine for ~1 hour. The next big test
was the wait test - watch two X-Files episodes, then log in and
see what happens. The result -- the cursor on the login screen
was very strange, having elements of the login screen (the word
'login' in katakana) as well as what can only be described as junk.
Logging in resulted in no (apparent) cursor -- yet the system did
seem to behave as though a cursor were there: On pushing the reset
button a box appeared giving me choices ("log out", "shut down",
"cancel", etc.) and moving the mouse around did result in these
choice bars highlighting/becoming active as the apparently invisible 
cursor ran over them. Switch mouse usb port, reboot.

     And no problems, last night or this morning.

     The noob in me is still wondering if the graphics card isn't
playing a role -- my troubles started when I accessed a video-intensive
website under my old Fedora/old firefox (ca. 2004) systems,
and the cursor issue is weird. 

     Time will tell....

       -Chris