can ram be bad even though it passes all tests

ok i have a question. i ran all tests on my ram sticks i have in my laptop. everything passes no matter what ram test i run... can ram still be bad and just not picked up buy tests.. reason i ask is i did a memory assessment speed and i it came back as 1778.38mb to me that seems slow..... a few weeks ag\o i ran it it said 2178.88

so i am at a loss....

my ram is kingston ddr2 II 800mhz 4gigs worth 2 gig sticks...

any info thanks.. cause i am thinking of just buying brand new sticks and see what happens...

anyone else.. my browser still crashes and once in awhile the system will just crash....

Have you run memtest86+ from a boot CD? I would have a hard time believing that your RAM is bad if it passes that. There are other stress tests you could run, like IBT or prime95, but I would hesitate to to that on a laptop because of the lack of cooling.

It would be better to put the RAM into a desktop so you could really stress it and see if there is an issue or not. When was the last time you re-installed windows? I always check software before hardware, as least to rule it out.

LMHmedchem

i have run every test i can think ofr to test the ram on my laptop... its crazy i say... i have reinstalled windows 7 a few times... thinking maybe it was a bad install or something.. and that dont work.. so i went and put xp back in same thing with the browsers i am so puzzled....

This could be a motherboard issue as well, which is one reason to try to test the ram in another rig. If you do try the ram in another computer, just make sure to set the bios to the exact specifications that are printed on the RAM chips.

Something like Intel Burn Test or Prime95 will find errors that Memtest does not, but be careful running something like this on a laptop. I would have a fan pointed at the laptop and have it up on something so that there is air flow under it. Also, these kinds of programs are intended to be run along with temperature monitoring software like RealTemp.

If you can't get the ram into another rig, try to borrow some RAM. You should also test the RAM one stick at a time, most of the time, a RAM problem will only affect one stick.

Does this happen with all browsers, meaning have you tried more than one browser?

LMHmedchem

LMHmedchem said:

This could be a motherboard issue as well, which is one reason to try to test the ram in another rig. If you do try the ram in another computer, just make sure to set the bios to the exact specifications that are printed on the RAM chips.

Something like Intel Burn Test or Prime95 will find errors that Memtest does not, but be careful running something like this on a laptop. I would have a fan pointed at the laptop and have it up on something so that there is air flow under it. Also, these kinds of programs are intended to be run along with temperature monitoring software like RealTemp.

If you can't get the ram into another rig, try to borrow some RAM. You should also test the RAM one stick at a time, most of the time, a RAM problem will only affect one stick.

Does this happen with all browsers, meaning have you tried more than one browser?

LMHmedchem

hi there yes i have tried every browser i can think of...

i did try to run WMD test and i get this error.. cant rem all of it but went something like this... WMD could not processes system memory map deficiencies memory map contained ranges that extra 4gigs.... something like that...

Check in your motherboard bios and make sure that your RAM settings (frequency, voltage, and timings) match what is printed on the sticks. If everything is set to auto, see if you can manually change the settings to the correct values. There should be a label on the ram giving the timings and voltage. After than, check one stick at a time in each slot. That should let you know if you have a bad stick or a bad motherboard slot.

If that checks out, you may want to look at flashing the motherboard bios. It could have been corrupted. I would check with support for the laptop manufacturer before doing that if it is still under warranty.

Other than doing that, it will be very hard to check out your hardware without either some known good ram sticks, or another laptop, to repeat tests on.

LMHmedchem