signal 11! Ack!

ok, I'm rebuilding my machine, and everything is going along just fine,
when during the compile of the i2c package, so that I can use
lm-sensors, dies with signal 11 from gcc.
I check google.
Google brings up many many articles, most of which say that I probably
have bad ram.
I install memtest86.
Sure enough, my 256M stick is bad.
I take out the ram, and run on the other 128 that was in the box.
I go to recompile i2c, and still the signal 11 rears its ugly head.
I realize that RMS has nothing better to do than to put cryptic error
codes in gcc that could mean one of 5 bazillion things. (ok, that last
part was just rant after 6 hours of fighting with this.)

But what could be the problem?
-T