Personal computing discussed
bthylafh wrote:Does the second pass and thereafter repeat the exact same test as the first pass?Because RAM is a funny beast and some errors don't manifest unless you let the test run a long, long time. You're free to stop the tester, but you could also let it run overnight and be a bit more sure that your RAM is good.
How did you determine the offending stick?OTOH I've had a few times when RAM was definitely bad but the tester didn't pick up on it, but the computer worked fine once the offending stick was replaced.
churin wrote:How did you determine the offending stick?
Captain Ned wrote:churin wrote:How did you determine the offending stick?
If you get an error, pull all but 1 stick. If it tests good, swap it for another. Lather, rinse, & repeat until you find the offender.
churin wrote:Captain Ned wrote:churin wrote:How did you determine the offending stick?
If you get an error, pull all but 1 stick. If it tests good, swap it for another. Lather, rinse, & repeat until you find the offender.
I asked that question because he indicated that the tester failed to detect any error.
churin wrote:Captain Ned wrote:churin wrote:How did you determine the offending stick?
If you get an error, pull all but 1 stick. If it tests good, swap it for another. Lather, rinse, & repeat until you find the offender.
I asked that question because he indicated that the tester failed to detect any error.
RAM chips consist of a large array of tightly packed memory cells, one for each bit of data. The vast majority of the intermittent failures are a result of interaction between these memory cells. Often writing a memory cell can cause one of the adjacent cells to be written with the same data. An effective memory test attempts to test for this condition. Therefore, an ideal strategy for testing memory would be the following:
- Write a cell with a zero.
- Write all of the adjacent cells with a one, one or more times.
- Check that the first cell still has a zero.
nerdrage wrote:Some of the tests are identical, some are changed randomly with each pass. Also, RAM failures tend to be intermittent. In order to find an intermittent problem, you need to run the same tests over and over again until the intermittent problem occurs.RAM chips consist of a large array of tightly packed memory cells, one for each bit of data. The vast majority of the intermittent failures are a result of interaction between these memory cells. Often writing a memory cell can cause one of the adjacent cells to be written with the same data. An effective memory test attempts to test for this condition. Therefore, an ideal strategy for testing memory would be the following:
- Write a cell with a zero.
- Write all of the adjacent cells with a one, one or more times.
- Check that the first cell still has a zero.
churin wrote:Then why do we need to let it repeat? Isn't once enough?
churin wrote:Does every "Pass" repeat the exact same test?
The long-awaited Memtest86+ 5 is finally here !
For reviewers, here are some tips :
- Press F1 at startup to enable "Safe Mode". Could be useful if you're reviewing an A-Step HSW or an early engineering-sample of a GT3e-enabled CPU.
- Press F2 to toggle the experimental SMT support in case of any problem. SMT is disabled by default on all Xeon/Opteron and any Engineering Sample CPU. You can press F2 to force SMT, but nothing guaranteed !
- [Hidden Mode] Press F3 to enable an alternative way to detect SMT. Only useful on Gigabyte Motherboard at this time.
Note about SMT : our internal tests showed that SMT only speed up the tests but DO NOT help in finding more errors.
Memtest86+ V5.00 changelog
----------------------------
- Added support for up to 2 TB of RAM on X64 CPUs
- Added experimental SMT support up to 32 cores
- Added complete detection for memory controllers.
- Added Motherboard Manufacturer & Model reporting
- Added CPU temperature monitoring
- Added enhanced Fail Safe Mode (Press F1 at startup)
- Added support for Intel "Sandy Bridge-E" CPUs
- Added support for Intel "Ivy Bridge" CPUs
- Added support for Intel "Haswell" CPUs
- Added support for Intel "Haswell-ULT" CPUs
- Added support for AMD "Kabini" (K16) CPUs
- Added support for AMD "Bulldozer" CPUs
- Added support for AMD "Trinity" CPUs
- Added support for AMD E-/C-/G-/Z- "Bobcat" CPUs
- Added support for Intel Atom "Pineview" CPUs
- Added support for Intel Atom "Cedar Trail" CPUs
- Added SPD detection on most AMD Chipsets
- Enforced Coreboot support
- Optimized run time for faster memory error detection
- Rewriten lots of memory timings detection code
- Corrected bugs, bugs and more bugs
GTX wrote:If still interested Memtest86+ 5.00 is available in the "reviewer Kit for Intel Haswell" from http://www.cpuid.com/