Memtest86+ Guide/How To's

[Blazing fire]

Just wondering, how do I loop test 1 to 10 with 10 passes each? I have not tried it yet so I don't know what it's like. Thanks in advance,

 

[thisisapen]

So I've burnt 3 MEMTEST CDs using the ISO provided. I set my first boot to CD through the BIOS and whenever it boots it'll get to the "loading....." stage of MEMTEST, the disk(s) will spin up but it will not go anywhere past it, and I have to restart my system.

a) did I miss a command somewhere along the lines that enables an 'interface'?
b) am I an idiot?

thanks.

 

[RJARRRPCGP]

Sounds like a corrupted CD burn.

 

[Elluzion]

thanks

 

[phobic_sting]

making sense of the scan

Well I've been getting BSOD's (with different error messages) for weeks now, tried all I can think of and stuff people have suggested. The new trick for my pc is just to go to a blank black screen while idle.
Ran memtest after a BSOD a few weeks ago...showed a whole list of non-stop errors straight away. Turned pc off and ran scan again....no errors...tried different slot combos etc... Messed around with RAM timings a bit (Crucial Ballistix pc8500 2x1Gb) and settled for 1066mhz at the claimed 5-5-5-15...all seem ok-ish until today when the black screen and restart was forced, oh and a blue screen later just for good measure.

Anyway ran memtest again and a whole list of errors straight away, but yet again after a while when I run another scan, no errors. Unless.....and this is the part I don't understand...unless I select the option in memtest under 'Memory Sizing' - BIOS-All.
Then it goes nuts with errors again, but I'm not sure if it's valid since I've been testing 1Gb sticks at a time, yet it states testing of between 3840mb - 4096mb when this option is selected.

I've attached a picture so if anyone could shed some light it would be greatly appreciated.

 

[shadowdr]

So I've burnt 3 MEMTEST CDs using the ISO provided. I set my first boot to CD through the BIOS and whenever it boots it'll get to the "loading....." stage of MEMTEST, the disk(s) will spin up but it will not go anywhere past it, and I have to restart my system.

a) did I miss a command somewhere along the lines that enables an 'interface'?
b) am I an idiot?

thanks.

I have this problem with floppies, i keep two when one freezes remove and replace with the other. It must be done several times before it will load. I thought it was just my bios.

 

[KillrBuckeye]

Well I've been getting BSOD's (with different error messages) for weeks now, tried all I can think of and stuff people have suggested. The new trick for my pc is just to go to a blank black screen while idle.
Ran memtest after a BSOD a few weeks ago...showed a whole list of non-stop errors straight away. Turned pc off and ran scan again....no errors...tried different slot combos etc... Messed around with RAM timings a bit (Crucial Ballistix pc8500 2x1Gb) and settled for 1066mhz at the claimed 5-5-5-15...all seem ok-ish until today when the black screen and restart was forced, oh and a blue screen later just for good measure.

Anyway ran memtest again and a whole list of errors straight away, but yet again after a while when I run another scan, no errors. Unless.....and this is the part I don't understand...unless I select the option in memtest under 'Memory Sizing' - BIOS-All.
Then it goes nuts with errors again, but I'm not sure if it's valid since I've been testing 1Gb sticks at a time, yet it states testing of between 3840mb - 4096mb when this option is selected.

I've attached a picture so if anyone could shed some light it would be greatly appreciated.

I noticed similar behavior in Memtest86+ with my many sets of failing Ballistix PC3200. Sometimes the bad modules would not throw any errors in Memtest. I ended up using Prime95/Orthos to identify the bad modules.

 

[phobic_sting]

Good to know I'm not alone with this one. From what I've read around (hindsight is a wonderful thing) it's not Crucial Ballistix, but rather more like Crucial ********. Still, maybe it's just my system that dosen't play well with the Crucial stuff. I got some standard no-frills PNY pc6400 memory today so I'll try and give that a go.
Can anyone explain my above memtest picture though, with it always showing errors when I set the 'memory sizing' to 'BIOS-All'?
You think you know a little bit about computers, then I come here and feel really stupid compared to you guys! lol
I'm also looking forward to overclocking my Q6600 a bit when I get some better cooling and this memory stuff sorted! arrghhh....

 

[phobic_sting]

weird memtest result

I got a BSOD again today, restarted comp and ran memtest. 2 errors on test 1. But after I restart again, all scans fine, except when I use the 'Memory Sizing - BIOS-All' option. Then I get the screen as I posted previously. So it seems that I only get errors in a scan directly after a BSOD.
Right, so I took out the crucial ballistix and tested 1 stick of new PNY pc6400 memory using the default memtest scan. All is ok.
Then I try the 'Memory Sizing - BIOS-All' option again and I get the exact same screen as I posted above.
So perhaps my crucial memory isn't at fault? I really want to know what memory memtest is finding these 533 errors in when bios-all is selected. Is it scanning the page file? Although I don't really hear or see any indication of hard drive activity. Help!

Oh, and I tried Prime95/orthos for 1 hour and all seemed fine when I had the crucial ballistix in.

 

[KillrBuckeye]

In my case it took up to 2 hours for Prime95/Orthos blend test to report an error when one of the faulty modules was installed. (Good modules should run for 12+ hours). I still recommend that method for finding the bad module. Many of us have experienced cases where Memtest86+ simply would not detect a failing module for whatever reason.

 

[vxxs]

This helps a lot thanks! Good post!

 

[nicolaid]

hmmmm interesting with the last bunch of posts. I too seem to be having issues with 2X1GB Crucial Ballistix 1066mhz with my Asus M3A32-MVP Deluxe. Some tests are stable, after a few days, BSOD's begin, run memtest86+ again, and it shows errors. I then power down, try one stick at a time, in different sockets as well, and it shows all is well again. Power up, run both in, memtest continues to show stable. After a few days, a week, same cyclic issue starts all over again. I've upped the voltage from stock 2.2 to 2.3 and am trying now. I am also technically underclocking this ram (running it at about 936mhz), I am currently playing a bit with timings but there are WAY too many to play with. I used a windows program called 'memset' to see what the computer was actually setting when everything in the bios was set to AUTO and then I went back into the Bios and manually inputed all these settings. I am trying memtest again as we speak.

Any luck with you guys??

 

[bankheadd]

I'm a novice OC and I used MEMTEST86+ V2.10 and I had failures at test 7. Pass 5, Errors 4608. Not sure what that means. I was using memtest to troubleshoot OC problems I'm having. Here is one of my settings that failed. This setting would cause win to freeze up would not run 3dmark06 & orthos
385x9 3465
N/B STRAP PSB 1066
DRAM STRAP 533 (1:1)
CPU 1.375
DDR2 1.95
MCH 1.65
MEMORY 5-5-5-15-48 / 5-5-5-15-54

 

[KillrBuckeye]

I'm a novice OC and I used MEMTEST86+ V2.10 and I had failures at test 7. Pass 5, Errors 4608. Not sure what that means. I was using memtest to troubleshoot OC problems I'm having. Here is one of my settings that failed. This setting would cause win to freeze up would not run 3dmark06 & orthos
385x9 3465
N/B STRAP PSB 1066
DRAM STRAP 533 (1:1)
CPU 1.375
DDR2 1.95
MCH 1.65
MEMORY 5-5-5-15-48 / 5-5-5-15-54

If you get errors, then your memory is either unstable or defective. Back off your settings and try again. If you still get errors, back off some more. If you get all the way back to default clocks and you still get errors, it's time to RMA the memory.

 

[cmichaelt]

4.0 is out

*** Enhancements in v4.00 : ***

* New Features
o Major Architectural changes
o First pass twice faster (reduced iterations)
o Detect DDR2/3 brands and part numbers on Intel DDR2/3 chipsets
o Added detection for Intel "Clarkdale" CPU
o Added detection for Intel "Gulftown" CPU
o Added detection for AMD "Magny-Cours" CPU
o Added detection for Intel XMP Memory
o Added for CPU w/ 0.5/1.5/3/6/12/16/18/24MB L3
o Added "clean" DMI detection for DDR3/FBDIMM2
o Better detection of Integrated Memory Controllers

* Bug Fixes
o Corrected detection for Intel "Lynnfield" CPU
o Corrected detection for AMD 45nm K10 CPU
o Solved crash with AMD Geode LX
o Complies with SMBIOS 2.6.1 specs
o Fixed compilation issues with gcc 4.2+
o Many others bug fixes

PS : Memtest86+ "3.00" was skipped and renamed 4.00 in order to avoid confusion with the original Memtest.

 

[dito]

i too am stuck at LOADING.......

I've tried 4 different ways and the "loading is far as I get
-I've downloaded the ISO.zip file, extracted it, and use Active ISO burner to burn the ISO file to CD, no luck. at least got "LOADING..."
-I've downloaded the ISO.zip file, extracted it, and use Roxio to burn the ISO file to CD (as bootable), no luck.
-I've downloaded the ISO.zip file, did NOT extract it, and use Active ISO burner to burn the ISO file to CD, no luck.
-I've downloaded the ISO.zip file, did NOT extracted it, and use Roxio to burn the ISO file to CD (as bootable), no luck.

any help please!? I'm trying to pinpoint my bluescreens and I'm pretty sure it's memory related (not my personal memory 8) )THANKS!

 

[RollingThunder]

i too am stuck at LOADING.......

I've tried 4 different ways and the "loading is far as I get
-I've downloaded the ISO.zip file, extracted it, and use Active ISO burner to burn the ISO file to CD, no luck. at least got "LOADING..."
-I've downloaded the ISO.zip file, extracted it, and use Roxio to burn the ISO file to CD (as bootable), no luck.
-I've downloaded the ISO.zip file, did NOT extract it, and use Active ISO burner to burn the ISO file to CD, no luck.
-I've downloaded the ISO.zip file, did NOT extracted it, and use Roxio to burn the ISO file to CD (as bootable), no luck.

any help please!? I'm trying to pinpoint my bluescreens and I'm pretty sure it's memory related (not my personal memory 8) )THANKS!

Get V2.11.

http://www.memtest.org/

http://www.memtest.org/download/2.11/memtest86+-2.11.floppy.zip

>extract it to a location on your hard drive
>drop all the files onto a boot disk, that's it

PS:

If it passes here 5-10 passes, it doesn't mean you're "Good to go." This allows you a preliminary test outside of your operating system only to prevent corruption. There are perhaps two ofther tests to run in Windows (SuperPi 32mb and Prime95 or Orthos).

 

[dito]

not working either, is it because i'm on 64 bit and these are 32 bit ???

 

[RollingThunder]

not working either, is it because i'm on 64 bit and these are 32 bit ???

No, V2.11 runs fine in Vista 64 and it should run fine on Windows 7 64.

http://www.memtest86.com/tech.html#WinInstall

 

[shadowdr]

I have this problem with floppies, i keep two when one freezes remove and replace with the other. It must be done several times before it will load. I thought it was just my bios.

You might try this with cd's but I don't know if it will work.