Author Topic: Bad RAM and Memtest86+  (Read 5890 times)

  • Offline zpyder

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Bad RAM and Memtest86+
on: September 17, 2011, 10:19:05 AM
Parents computer has been BSOD'ing a lot so am running Memtest86+ on it. Currently it's found a crapload of errors 26% in. I've never used memtest before and got errors, and can't find much info on the net on how to interpret results etc.

At the end of the tests will it summarise bad DIMMs/modules, or am I going to have to just do it trial and error style, removing a DIMM at a time till I don't get errors?

Re: Bad RAM and Memtest86+
Reply #1 on: September 17, 2011, 10:47:54 AM
I,ve always done the trial & error way , try each stick on it's own until i find the culprit.
It is worth raising the voltage to the memory slightly & see it this cures the errors , i
have found with some motherboards that you have to raise the voltage slightly to get
stability with multiple memory sticks.
Who the smeg is Dwayne Dibbley ?

  • Offline zpyder

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Re: Bad RAM and Memtest86+
Reply #2 on: September 17, 2011, 14:08:02 PM
Well I tried each stick on its own and nothing threw an error up there. Tried a single stick in each of the slots and that was fine also.

Put all 4 dimms back in and am retesting. If it fails I'll see about fiddling with the voltages...I guess a likely culprit will be that I have 2 sets of ram in there, all 1gb, but I have 2 OCZ Plats(4-4-4) and 2 golds (5-5-5-12).

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  • Offline Clock'd 0Ne

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Re: Bad RAM and Memtest86+
Reply #3 on: September 17, 2011, 15:01:26 PM
Have you checked that you have the two sets paired up in the right slots for dual channel? Mixing and matching pairs can often cause problems, especially if they are modules which prefer different timings.

Re: Bad RAM and Memtest86+
Reply #4 on: September 17, 2011, 15:21:39 PM
It might have just been that the dimm had worked loose, with expansion and contraction.

  • Offline zpyder

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Re: Bad RAM and Memtest86+
Reply #5 on: September 17, 2011, 16:33:20 PM
Well I put all 4 DIMMs back in, but swapped them round (As in, the plats were in channel 1 and the golds in the other channel, and I swapped them around so gold in channel 1 etc) and left memtest running and its fine.

So I guess it could have worked loose, or maybe something odd about having the fast ram in channel 1?

EDIT:

I spoke too soon, still crashing. Went into the BIOS and reset all the timings from auto to the slower ram speed and put the voltage to 2v (I'm guessing a possible culprit is the 2 lots of ram operate at different voltages)
Last Edit: September 17, 2011, 16:45:40 PM by zpyder #187;

  • Offline Bacon

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Re: Bad RAM and Memtest86+
Reply #6 on: September 17, 2011, 20:08:32 PM
Well I put all 4 DIMMs back in, but swapped them round (As in, the plats were in channel 1 and the golds in the other channel, and I swapped them around so gold in channel 1 etc) and left memtest running and its fine.

So I guess it could have worked loose, or maybe something odd about having the fast ram in channel 1?

EDIT:

I spoke too soon, still crashing. Went into the BIOS and reset all the timings from auto to the slower ram speed and put the voltage to 2v (I'm guessing a possible culprit is the 2 lots of ram operate at different voltages)

Why don't you just run one type of ram with one type of voltage :P
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  • Offline zpyder

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Re: Bad RAM and Memtest86+
Reply #7 on: September 18, 2011, 07:56:37 AM
The parents computer was put together from old parts from another computer, at the time the old comp only had 2gb of ram, and when I went to upgrade it to 4, that ram was discontinued, CBA to buy 4gb when I had 2gb of perfectly good stuff ><

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