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How long should you run memtest?

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Well I have had it throw it's first set of errors after 185 passes of test 5, then not again til like pass 670. So it can take a while to show errors. My personal theory is that if you can loop the default tests for 12 hrs and 500 loops of test five you should be ok. Note I said theory:)
 
I personally use Memtest as a quick diagnostic and not as a measure of stability, at least for most applications. To test a new memory overclock I'll run about 5 passes of test #5. If those come up clean then it's on to Prime95. Often times Prime95 will be unstable while Memtest comes up clean, so Memtest definitely isn't the best measure of stability for me. However, if I do pick up an error during those runs of #5 then I know the overclock won't pass Prime, and I adjust until it's clean.

That doesn't count for some situations though, like being unable to find the cause of Prime95's instability and using Memtest86 to eliminate RAM as the problem. Then I would run for 12 hours or so.
 
i personally run it only thru 1 test of #5. as someone said above, i use it as a basic quick test to see if i get errors. if i do then i know it won't pass prime so i go from there. if i'm expecting errors but dont' get any then i run it a few more times then check out prime if i still got no errors. sometimes it passes many hours of memtest but not 20 seconds of prime.
 
Guys, I will tell you that I've been using Memtest alot lately while testing the PQI ram and I will run a couple of full passes to test cpu stability, then switch to #5 only. I've found when I am borderline with my timings, that errors will pop up when I am up to passes numbering in the mid teens. There are threads at BleedinEdge and ABXZone which I have linked below that discusses Memtest and at one point they explain why you should run at least 32 (I think this is the right number) passes of test #4 in order to test all of the data patterns for that test. I guess my point is that in order to fully utilize Memtest, you need to let it run more like 12-24 hours vs. 12-24 minutes.

http://www.bleedinedge.com/forum/showthread.php?t=442&page=1&pp=15

http://www.abxzone.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=50588
 
personally i would run it as long as you can .. up to about a day .. then later down the line run it again to make sure.. overnight before you go to sleep then go to work and when you get home should be good..
 
After about 20 minutes - I get 8 errors. I have 512 stick of corsair xms platinum and one 512 stick of regular xms. After about 5 minutes in windows, it lags like crazy and takes FOREVER to do anything, even open the start menu. This happens in Word, in any games, or even just sitting on the desktop. Is 8 errors in 20 minutes a bad thing? Can someone help?
 
Yup, 8 errors is a bad thing. You shouldn't be getting ANY errors in Memtest. If you are, you could be actively screwing up your Windows installation and you're probably just corrupting the hard drive in general.
 
That's what I figured. Is there any way to tell which stick is going bad other than take one out and test one at a time? Also, I bought these like last summer so they are over a year old - will corsair RMA these?
 
Vertical_Zer0 said:
take one out and test one at a time
Click to expand...
- That be the way to do it. Corsair like most major memory manufacturers offer life-time warranties on their products so check out Corsair's web-site and look for their RMA link. :)

As for me and memtest86, I'll run test #5 for a quick stability check before prime95 and for overnight burn-in on new rams. Oh, I also take note of the memory bandwidth that's on display.
 
Vertical_Zer0 said:
After about 20 minutes - I get 8 errors. I have 512 stick of corsair xms platinum and one 512 stick of regular xms. After about 5 minutes in windows, it lags like crazy and takes FOREVER to do anything, even open the start menu. This happens in Word, in any games, or even just sitting on the desktop. Is 8 errors in 20 minutes a bad thing? Can someone help?
Click to expand...

Uh, any errors is a bad thing for stability...8 minutes is a very short amount of time. I would loosen the timings or lower the FSB. Also, non-matching sticks might have something to do with it as well.
 
A bunch. Depends on what you're looking for. If you're just looking to make sure the overclock isn't horribly unstable, I'd let it run a few passes. 4-6 maybe.
 
Bogie said:
Thank you. How many times should i let it run 5.
Click to expand...

I've had the first errors pop up while running test #5 once as late as the 22nd pass (boy was I disappointed) and on several occassions after 14-16 passes so if you are just doing a quick test and going back into BIOS, 3-4 passes is probably OK, but if you plan on going into Windows, you need to be a little more certain and my suggestion would be to do 25-30 passes of test #5.

Update:

Earlier today while running Memtest with some of that bh-5 from CompuVest my first 2 errors popped up on pass #38 and on a seperate run, on pass #27 so if you are doing more than just a quick "does it boot" kinda thing, be sure to run it, run it, run it.
 
Last edited:
I just loop through the whole thing once or twice, then run Test 5 for about 5 times. But you can always just run SuperPI in windows, that test memory too.
 
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