Corrupt OS

Hi..

I let my server RAM run at 250MHz for about 30 seconds until I rebooted. It was an accident, the RAM is rated at 200MHz. I would like to know how long it takes for an OS to become corrupt? Can it happen straight away?

If so, can chkdsk fix any problems. I ran chkdsk straight away and it found no problems ..

Many thanks.

An OS exists on your Hard Drive... if the RAM takes a crap that'll rarely do any more then crash you off and hard-lock.

But it could be a problem if the OS was being altered while the RAM corrupted...

Right OK, well it was only there for 20 seconds max.. then I rebooted and changed the divider so hopefully my OS is still 100% unaffected. It's a bit of a grey area for sure.

INFO

Contrary to what was posted above, all you need to do is boot with your memory out of spec and your OS could be gone. It happens all the time.

As for you being safe unless something was being updated?.......that is also incorrect. The OS is always being updated. It is a constant process.

This is why especially when changing memory speeds and timings, you should have a memtest86+ boot cd to test with before booting the OS. Boot it and let it run 15 minutes to make sure things are stable enough to load the os without damaging it.

Yes that's what I was afraid of. I think I may have to reformatt it. Is chkdsk not capable of fixing broken files? I ran it and it found nothing at all, I even sat and watched it doing it! It runs for at least 20 minutes so it seems to be doing a thorough job.

Question

What exactly are your symptoms at this point?

Well none .. but I've read that it can corrupt OS files and so if there is any doubt I'd rather reformat, but obviously at the same time I'd rather not lol.

I know CPU errors can't affect an OS except for crashing programs but at least it can't write to system files like RAM can. Think I'l leave it for a while and see if there's any unusual behavior.

INFO

I think you are fine. Usually if you corrupt the OS, you will know at boot time. If you haven't gotten any errors or other odd behavior, you are OK!!