INQUIRY: Inconsistent gcc compile failures

[Joe Buck]

On Thu, Dec 21, 2000 at 02:19:00PM -0500, fhirsch@tse.com wrote:
> > Errors do not
> > always occur in the same module of code. Sometimes the code element will
> > compile fine, and fail on a subsequent element. Eventually the code will
> > compile all the way through in most cases.
> > 
> > Enclosed is a sample report of the error (received when compiling Perl DBD
> > mysql module). I believe I had one of these in gdb once, but no backtrace
> > was actually available. gdb reported a normal exit state.
> > 
> > cc: Internal compiler error: program cc1 got fatal signal 11

Phil Edwards writes:
> This is almost always a sign of hardware failure.  There is no source of
> randomness in the compiler itself that would sometimes create good code and
> sometimes fail when given the same input.  I suspect your RAM is going bad.
> 
> Somebody has a really good webpage somewhere about this, but I don't
> recall where.

The web page is

http://www.bitwizard.nl/sig11/

Generally if the problem is in the compiler, the crash will be repeatable,
you will always see the message or never see it on a particular input.
If it is intermittent and random, then it is probably bad memory.