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0 pointsjjeaff5y ago0 comments

How in the world would you ever know that problem was caused by a bit flip and not just one of the countless other reasons that a sensor could fail?

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jgalentine0075y ago· 3 in thread

I have a TPMS programming tool (ATEQ QuickSet) and reader (Autel TS401), because I like to swap my winter / summer tires on my own. The TPMS light came on one day and inflating tires didn't help - I used the reader and found that one sensor's ID had changed. When I compared the ID (it was in hex) to the last programming - it was a single bit off. I couldn't reprogram the sensor itself, but I was able to update the ECU with the changed ID using the ATEQ.

I live in Denver but spend a lot of time skiing around 11k feet, maybe the higher elevation means more radiation.

dharmab5y ago

Similar story, we saw that one particular IP address in a public cloud network had a 3% TLS handshake error rate. We diverted traffic and then analyzed with wireshark. We found one particular bit was being pulled low (i.e. 0 -> 0 and 1 -> 0). HTTP connections didn't notice but TLS checksum verifications would randomly fail. Had a hell of a time convincing the cloud provider they had a hardware fault- turned out to be a bug which disabled ECC on some of their hardware.

Aside: I'm surprised you got a TPMS programming tool instead of a set of steelies. Big wheels? Multiple winter vehicles?

jgalentine0075y ago

I have 2 cars. I like the TPMS to work since I've had 3 nails in tires in 4 years (newer construction area). Also the TPMS light in my impreza is almost as bright as the sun.

cmehdy5y ago

IIRC higher altitudes definitely register more radiation, the latitude effect being relatively minor in comparison.

Interestingly enough, average background radiation is actually the highest in the US exactly where you are[0] and I've seen comments (on a few websites talking about it) ranging from "the Rockies are loaded in Uranium" to "what about the Rocky Flats nuclear weapons site". Perhaps you're exactly in the right place to be an advocate for ECC :)

[0] http://www.radiationnetwork.com/

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