SOLVED How to test your RAM ?

[Gh0sT-NoVa]

Guys , since recently i bought my new Vengeance RAM , i wanted to make sure they are working fine and stable.

Well so far 2 - 3 days now , no BSOD , PC crashing / freezing.

But then again , i did experience a few weird freeze in game etc , but this could be not RAM related , for it's normal for games time to time have some problems as such.

So what i was told was to use this Memtest86+

http://www.memtest.org/

What i read here it only meiton about that Memtest will test if your RAM is faulty and will require replacement , but could it be used to test stability ?

http://howto.cnet.com/8301-11310_39-57342679-285/how-to-test-your-ram-in-windows/

 

[EarthDog]

faulty = not stable...so yep.

 

[Gh0sT-NoVa]

faulty = not stable...so yep.

Hmm but if you OC your RAM ( but i didn't ) couldn't that cause unstable too i might be wrong , it's just what i think.

But anyways i think i will just give this Memtest a go.

If your RAM is faulty, how common will problems be produce from it ? Will it be hard to be seen or it be quite frequently actually ?

 

[EarthDog]

Yes it could, and memtest will find those errors too...

Freezes, BSOD's... it varies from bad/unstable ram.

 

[redduc900]

... and when Memtest86+ fails, it doesn't necessarily mean the RAM is bad. Memtest can fail for any number of reasons, including incorrectly set Vdimm, vNB / vIMC, DRAM timings, and even Vcore / Vcc.

 

[Gh0sT-NoVa]

Ok bad news, over 30 mins.....i been through all 8 tests ( i think its only 8 , the top PASS % is over 100% and restarting )

I had 300+ errors lol !

So means , time to RMA my RAM which is only been like 4 days old ??

But as i said i didn't get any BlueScreen / PC freeze ( game freeze only on certain games , but my PC is still responding , i was able to Alt Tab , i thin those are game problem )

Usually people kept saying if Memtest failed means its time to RMA your RAM.....

But could settings etc be problem ?? Like @redduc900 said, but i didn't touch any of my RAM settings all are at default , speed ,timing etc , only have it on XMP since its a 1600 not a 1333.

But , i have my RAM on 2nd RAM slot instead of 1st since ASUS recommend this installation method. Does that matter ?

Or should i try throwing in back my old RAM and see if Memtest have any errors too ?

 

[larrymoencurly]

Even a single error with any diagnostic is reason to replace the memory, provided the error was caused by the memory itself, instead of the power supply, motherboard, incorrect settings (sometimes from a wrongly designed BIOS), or even a faulty diagnostic program. Memory should work perfectly at the automatic default settings, without requiring any tweaking of the timings or voltage.

I don't know about Corsair, but with Kingston if you talk with higher level tech support, they seem to send out better quality memory than the original -- same model but apparently tested more thoroughly.

I test all memory with 2 different diagnostics overnight, one being MemTest86/86+, the other Gold Memory. Neither program finds every error.

Why did you choose illegitimate memory instead of sure thing Samsung or no-heatsink Crucial? Did you optimistically think you'd be among the 99% of users who wouldn't have any problems?

 

[EarthDog]

Why did you choose illegitimate memory instead of sure thing Samsung or no-heatsink Crucial? Did you optimistically think you'd be among the 99% of users who wouldn't have any problems?

Covered it....

Nobody know what the hell you mean when you talk like this LMC. Then you will be forced to rehash the garbage that was supposed to be kept in that thread.

 

[Gh0sT-NoVa]

o 0 barely understand what was i reading

But anyways...i tried using Windows Memory Diagnostic , no errors reported.....so far still no BSOD , or any sort of crashes.

I think i will just ignore for the time being, if problems do occur i will only decide what to do then.

 

[EarthDog]

Really, it was the longest thread about nothing. Alarmist type posting.

 

[Gh0sT-NoVa]

I couldn't even understand what he said on this topic here.....i seen him post before on few of the threads i made but as again , i couldn't understand before either lol.

 

[EarthDog]

Again, its nothing 99% of people (and you are in that group) need to worry about.

 

[larrymoencurly]

But anyways...i tried using Windows Memory Diagnostic , no errors reported.....so far still no BSOD , or any sort of crashes.

I think i will just ignore for the time being, if problems do occur i will only decide what to do then.

Generally when it comes to memory diagnostics, trust the one that reported the worst results, and 300+ errors aren't anything to ignore. Maybe you have a dirty contact and need to implement BlargCraft's fix.

I don't know how good Windows Memory Diagnostic is, but for me it's missed problems found by MemTest86 or Gold Memory. However one person said it worked when MemTest86/86+ did not. Some diagnostics are really bad and will miss almost everything, an example being DocMem from SIMMtester, which didn't seem any better than the slow version of the BIOS power-on memory test. RealWorldTech.com gave it a rather bad review.