Memtest Passes

[d211592]

Sorry for the basic question: When people suggest doing 5 passes in memtest, what exactly is 5 passes? Does that mean running memtest 5 times, each time until the pass figure reaches 100%?

 

[TVeblen]

Memtest will keep running "passes" (writing to all the registers to 100%) over and over until you stop it. (Unless you configure it differently). Just let it run until it reports that it has done 5 (or more) passes. Most people do this before they go to bed and check it in the morning.

 

[Tepid]

To run a proper Memory Test of any kind,, weather it is MemTest or Windows Memory Diags

You should let the test run for no less than 4 to 6 hours solid. 5 Passes is ok for a quick test, but if you want to know that all of your RAM is good, then it should be run no less than 4 to 6 hours on 4G or less of ram. If you have more it should be generally exponential to something like,,, 6G no less than 6 to 8 hours,,, 8G+ no less than 8 and up to about 16 hours depending.

One thing to keep in mind is,, you can run Memory Tests for too long where they will begin to generate errors even on good solid ram. we are talking approx. +/- 24 hours.

But less than 4 hours on 4G or less is not long enough to determine that ram is as 100% solid as can be determined by a ram test. Ram does go bad, but if you do not get any errors within that 4 to 6 hour time frame, you can be relativley Highly Certain that the ram is good and will last a long time.

Unless, you get errors right away. Any errors right away and you can be pretty sure you have a bad stick of ram or bad slots.