This is the best test we have, but takes quite a while. Just from memory, I believe with Dell, it is F12. Guring boot up when you see the Dell Logo strt tapping F12. You only have a couple of seconds, if you are too late, you will boot into your OS. If it works, you will see a list of every hard drive, CD/DVD drive or USB Flash drive attached to your computer. Use the up and down keys to highlight the device you want to boot from, hit enter and it should boot from that device. If you downloaded the version 5.01, when it starts it will say hit some F key or some other key if you have a multicore CPU. DO NOT HIT ANYTHING, the test will begin in a couple of seconds and will continue to run until you stop it. Let it run for a full 8 passes. It will tell you how many passes it has done and how many errors. If it finds even 1 error, stop the test, your ram has failed and there is no reason to continue.
Just so you understand. We are not asking you to run the same test 8 times. Each pass tests a different thing. I think there are 10 tests in each pass they test different things also, So it takes 8 consecutive passes, all at the same time to fully test the ram, if you stop it and start it back, it will start over at the beginning. So, 8 passes all at the same time.
If, for some reason, you cannot get to the boot menu from the F12 key, try F11 or some other key. If that does not work, make sure your CD is in the CD/DVD burner and boot into bios, go to the boot selection part of the bios and set the CD/DVD as 1st boot device and the Hard drive as 2nd boot device, save and exit, you should boot right into the test. After the test, you can either leave it that way or boot into bios and change the boot order. many people set theirs with the CD/DVD as 1 st boot device normally. Dell's used to be shipped that way. The purpose is to alleviate this problem in case the computer won't boot. Just put a repair disk in and boot up, the repair disk will be recognized before the DVD. If you do not have a bootable boot device in the DVD drive, the computer will automatically look to the 2nd boot device, your hard drive. So, either way, or you may be lucky and have to do nothing. just reboot.