RAM - Test with Memtest86+

smarteyeball said:

One thing that could be mentioned is that if you repeatedly fail a particular test ie Test 5 / Test 8 - it's not always a sign of bad RAM/mobo, but could actually be indicative of too high a mhz, incorrect timings / voltage settings etc.



And when 'tweaking RAM' - ie dialling in Northbridge voltage (775> socket), QPI/DRAM(VTT) (1156/1366) voltages and DRAM voltages and memory timings.

You can shortcut the process by running an individual Test until it passes continually.

Then you can run the full suite of tests to double check all your timings/settings are dialled in. This can significantly cut down the time involved with tweaking.


Another thing worth mentioning is that memtest is not a 100% guarantee as it only stress the RAM, QPI(VTT)/NB and does not stress the CPU.


Also worth mentioning is that the error codes are virtually meaningless - all that counts is Error or No error.

My machine is running dual channel 8gb at 1333 (reported by the BIOS). Memtest is giving me errors, I have not yet run the whole troubleshooting gamut, but is it possible that changing the mhz to 1066 would solve the problem? I'm just asking for now, I want to see how many bad sticks/slots are reported by memtest first. I have not touched any of the mobo tuning features, it's all bone stock.

I notice you are using two different brands of RAM; that may be the problem.

Try moving the PNY DIMMs to slots 1 and 3; move the Crucial DIMMs to slots 2 and 4. That would offer the best chance of success.

If that doesn't help pass the test, go ahead and try running the RAM at that slower speed. It won't hurt anything, except your performance, and there is a chance it will work.

If decreasing the speed doesn't work, change it back to 1333, and then run tests on the pairs of sticks. Test the PNY sticks in slots 1 and 3, and then the Crucial ones in the same slots. If no errors are shown for either test, we can rule out the possibility of a bad stick, as far as Memtest will tell us.

There's a loooong story about having 2 brands of RAM. I bought the crucial ram for an new intel mobo, mobo was not compatible with single sided sticks (even tho intel claimed it was). Ran out to Staples, got double sided PNY sticks, mobo recognized them but never worked right (froze up all of the time). Got an MSI mobo, put ALL the RAM in it and got a running system. Had a couple of driver related BSOD issues, solved them and had a stable system for about a week. Last night, BSOD land again, dump says check your memory. They are in a 1-3, 2-4 matched pair setup, but I forget which is in where. I'll check when I get home.

I will do as you say and report back. Thanks for the reply!

Jonathan_King said:

I notice you are using two different brands of RAM; that may be the problem.

Try moving the PNY DIMMs to slots 1 and 3; move the Crucial DIMMs to slots 2 and 4. That would offer the best chance of success.

If that doesn't help pass the test, go ahead and try running the RAM at that slower speed. It won't hurt anything, except your performance, and there is a chance it will work.

If decreasing the speed doesn't work, change it back to 1333, and then run tests on the pairs of sticks. Test the PNY sticks in slots 1 and 3, and then the Crucial ones in the same slots. If no errors are shown for either test, we can rule out the possibility of a bad stick, as far as Memtest will tell us.

Good advice, mixing RAM card manufacturors is alway risky, sometimes you can adjust the settings and get them stable.
It takes time and a lot of testing, loosening the timings and lowering the frequency is the next step.
Make sure the pairs are in the same channel, PNY in one channel and Crucial in the other channel.

Kmerse said:

Hello, I have the same problem as few others before me.
I install the program on an USB drive. I let the program to format the drive. I set up the BIOS so removable drivers will be the first location to boot on. Still, Windows starts. I checked the BIOS, it indicaes that the stick is in the USB slot. I even tried to turn off any other boot device, and let the machine to boot only from the USB, but then it gives me an error message that it didn't find any bootable device...

Hello,

Do you have a blank CD? If so, you may try Method 2.

Dave76 said:

Looks good Jon, I tried the USB installer method and was impressed with the ease of the process.
This can easily be put on a USB and removed when no longer needed.

This led to making a USB rescue drive, which quickly led to approximately 400 apps on 1.44GB.
Including the Windows 7 System Repair Disc and MS Sysinternals Suite.
Most of these will never get used but, it's better to have something when needed than have to look for it.

Hi Dave

Im interested in what you have done here.I have about 7-8 1 gig usb sticks with various boot programs on like partition wizard, killdisk, now memtest but its always bothered me that especially in the memest case that it uses only 200kb of space on a 1 gig flash drive.
How do you install more than 1 boot program on 1 flash drive and how does the pc recognise which program you want to use at boot.
I would be very interested in making something along the lines of what you have done.

Danny

xxxdannyxxx said:

Dave76 said:

Looks good Jon, I tried the USB installer method and was impressed with the ease of the process.
This can easily be put on a USB and removed when no longer needed.

This led to making a USB rescue drive, which quickly led to approximately 400 apps on 1.44GB.
Including the Windows 7 System Repair Disc and MS Sysinternals Suite.
Most of these will never get used but, it's better to have something when needed than have to look for it.

Hi Dave

Im interested in what you have done here.I have about 7-8 1 gig usb sticks with various boot programs on like partition wizard, killdisk, now memtest but its always bothered me that especially in the memest case that it uses only 200kb of space on a 1 gig flash drive.
How do you install more than 1 boot program on 1 flash drive and how does the pc recognise which program you want to use at boot.
I would be very interested in making something along the lines of what you have done.

Danny

Hi Danny,
I am using this:
How to Create the Ultimate Bootable USB Flash Drive
You can add as many ISO programs as you have room for, then edit the loader file to add it to the start list. Works great.

The other one is Liberkey, has a lot of useful apps that come with it, as far as I remember you can't add apps to it, but you can use the free space to store any files you want. I just made a folder for the misc files.

Kmerse said:

USB doesn'n worked for me either. However, with a rewritable CD the program works. Maybe there is a bug in the latest version of the program or there is some kind of security proram which doesn't allows our machines to boot from an USB. I'm only guessing... :)

Make sure you have your BIOS set to boot from a USB device, there are usually a couple of choices, try them until you find the right one.
Try USB-HDD