Im fed up with BSOD all the time - is there a downloadable program that can check if your ram is ok or if it a bit of a mess?
Im fed up with BSOD all the time - is there a downloadable program that can check if your ram is ok or if it a bit of a mess?
E8500 - DFI P45 - 4Gb Corsair DHX - 4850 crossfire - X-Fi - water cooled and nice and quiet
Memtest86+ is what you are looking for - download the ISO, burn to CD, put it in the drive and leave running for at leasts 24 hours
24 hours?! didnt know it needed that long
It ensures it is completely error proof - I've had memory survive 8 or 16 hours, but fail at 23 - similar situation to when I was getting BSODs...
Microsoft do one you can download as well, imaginatively called 'Microsoft memory test utility' that seems to find problems quite quickly. Don't know how it compares to Memtest though
A poor substitute IMO.
http://www.memtest.org/
PS. Two full passes is normally enough to determine if RAM is good or not. Length of time this takes depends on memory speed and amount of RAM installed. Takes longer with older CPUs too...
memtest also comes on the ubuntu distro, which is mighty handy
VodkaOriginally Posted by Ephesians
It also doesn't guarantee that your memory will run ok in windows, have seen many people run memtest86 for hours but still have issues in xp myself included . Only tests #5 & #8 really emulate memory utilisation in xp.
another tester that can be run in xp is HCI Memtest for windows this can be run with 2 instances to maximise memory coverage.
Neither are perfect - memtest86 biggest weakness is it doesn't test in an xp enviroment.
memtest for windows biggest fault - it doesnt test all your memory.
But between the 2 they'll do the job.
i'd run 8hr(overnight) memtest86 then if that's ok run the windows tester for the same time.
luck
"Well, there was your Uncle Tiberius who died wrapped in cabbage leaves but we assumed that was a freak accident."
Thanks for the swift replies folks - i used the xp mem tester in the end, RAM seems fine. Although my hdd crashed out last night So that didnt improve my mood!
E8500 - DFI P45 - 4Gb Corsair DHX - 4850 crossfire - X-Fi - water cooled and nice and quiet
any memtest is like running orthos or primme, the longer it runs the less probability there is for error. But that doesn't fully eliminate the chance of error.To me, that suggests something wrong with XP rather than Memtest
to illustrate my point
consider this:-
Is my pc stable or not??
wow thats a long test
wow! you tested it for that long?
I would have thought if it had survived 24hrs, why wouldn't it survive upto 100hrs?
That's exactly the point i was tring to make.I would have thought if it had survived 24hrs, why wouldn't it survive upto 100hrs?
In other words short odds but u still get that 100-1 shot come in now & againthe longer it runs the less probability there is for error. But that doesn't fully eliminate the chance of error
It's about probabilities not certainties
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