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#11
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How reliable is Memtest86+?
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#12
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How reliable is Memtest86+?
On 2011-04-03, Nil wrote:
I'm trying to troubleshoot a sick Windows PC (reboots randomly or bluescreens with DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL errors.) I may have more questions to ask about that later, but for now, I've run Memtest86+ twice now for about 4 passes of it's default tests each time, about 2.5 hours each time. No errors are reported. Can I confidently conclude that the RAM is OK? 4 passes at 2.5 hours is nowhere near enough to be considered thorough. I once lazily allowed myself to believe that 24 hours of testing was enough, but the instability persisted, so I let it go for 48 hours, and I *did* catch an error. Those are the hardest to troubleshoot since it takes so long to test for success, but you gotta do what you gotta do. I'd say 3 straight days would be good enough to feel "confident" about the results. BTW, ignore those who try to convice you that memtest is only for memory; it's great for finding *lots* of various problems. Hell, I once used it to verify that a faulty *case fan* was the cause of my instability. |
#13
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How reliable is Memtest86+?
On 04 Apr 2011, ShadowTek wrote in
alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt: 4 passes at 2.5 hours is nowhere near enough to be considered thorough. Probably not, but I've been trying to get this thing back on its feet quickly. I didn't realize it would be such a problem. Anyway, I don't think it's the RAM. I've tried running it just one of the two memory sticks, then the other. The computer crashes with either separately and with both. I suppose it's possible that both of them could have failed at the same time, after 5 years of good service, but I doubt it. I've also tried two different power supplies, two different video cards (the motherboard's built-in, and a separate AGP card) and checked the integrity of the hard disk multiple times. The computer crashes no matter what combination of my available hardware I install. I'm thinking it must be a failure in the motherboard, which is something I don't know how to troubleshoot, and I probably couldn't fix even if I did. BTW, ignore those who try to convice you that memtest is only for memory; it's great for finding *lots* of various problems. Hell, I once used it to verify that a faulty *case fan* was the cause of my instability. How did you do that? by swapping fans in and out and watching the tests fail with one of them? |
#14
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How reliable is Memtest86+?
From reading the various threads about your PC's possible memory
problem I wonder if the problem might be the memory in your video card. Try another video card if it's memory can not be replaced, if presently using just a motherboard built in video then add an external card and turn off the motherboard one and see if that helps any. I'm not sure what memory test programs actually check the memory resident in an external video card but I'm sure others here do. |
#15
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How reliable is Memtest86+?
Nil wrote:
On 04 Apr 2011, ShadowTek wrote in alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt: 4 passes at 2.5 hours is nowhere near enough to be considered thorough. Probably not, but I've been trying to get this thing back on its feet quickly. I didn't realize it would be such a problem. Anyway, I don't think it's the RAM. I've tried running it just one of the two memory sticks, then the other. The computer crashes with either separately and with both. I suppose it's possible that both of them could have failed at the same time, after 5 years of good service, but I doubt it. I've also tried two different power supplies, two different video cards (the motherboard's built-in, and a separate AGP card) and checked the integrity of the hard disk multiple times. The computer crashes no matter what combination of my available hardware I install. I'm thinking it must be a failure in the motherboard, which is something I don't know how to troubleshoot, and I probably couldn't fix even if I did. Have you tried any testing under a Linux LiveCD ? I confirmed a hardware problem on my oldest system, by comparison testing Windows and Linux, and finding both crashed the same way. ******* One thing that's hard to do in Linux, is video card stress testing. I don't have a good test case there, yet. (It's not something I work on full time, but I've put time into it in the past, without being happy with the level of expertise needed to get it going. Spending a week to set up one test case, is a non-starter :-( ) I just found this. Haven't tested it yet. http://www.phoronix-test-suite.com/?k=downloads but for that to be effective, you might want a driver from your video card company. On my Nvidia setup, I found the Nvidia driver was about 15x faster than the "out-of-the-box" driver on the LiveCD. But I had to install the OS to a spare hard drive, to do that. I don't think it's possible to install the Nvidia driver package while running a LiveCD (because it'll probably ask for a reboot, and you'd need a "persistent" home directory for the changes to survive the reboot - persistent storage allows things updated under / to be stored for the next session). If you don't use a "real" driver, it's possible there won't be enough video card stress for a good test. I've tried SpecViewPerf under Linux, and I got the impression, from the crappy way it was running, virtually all the rendering was being done in software. (Which is good if you're testing the CPU, but bad if you want to heat up the video card.) This Mepis distro, claims to be using Nvidia 260 out of the box. Nvidia has stopped supporting hardware for two generations of hardware, so there are actually three driver releases of importance. Something like 96? and 177? are used for older hardware, while 260 would be for more modern hardware (6200 or better?). The fact that the older releases would not be maintained, means eventually they won't install in a modern OS. http://distrowatch.com/index.php?dis...h=all&year=all So the ingredients are there, but I bet if I start now, a week from now I won't be very happy with the results. Paul |
#16
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How reliable is Memtest86+?
On 04 Apr 2011, GlowingBlueMist
wrote in alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt: From reading the various threads about your PC's possible memory problem I wonder if the problem might be the memory in your video card. Try another video card if it's memory can not be replaced, if presently using just a motherboard built in video then add an external card and turn off the motherboard one and see if that helps any. I've tried that, running the MB builtin video and also a separate AGP adapter - it crashes with both. I did just find an old PCI video adapter, and I'll try that out to see if it makes a difference. I'm doubtful. |
#17
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How reliable is Memtest86+?
On 4/4/2011 9:47 PM, Nil wrote:
On 04 Apr 2011, wrote in alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt: From reading the various threads about your PC's possible memory problem I wonder if the problem might be the memory in your video card. Try another video card if it's memory can not be replaced, if presently using just a motherboard built in video then add an external card and turn off the motherboard one and see if that helps any. I've tried that, running the MB builtin video and also a separate AGP adapter - it crashes with both. I did just find an old PCI video adapter, and I'll try that out to see if it makes a difference. I'm doubtful. I agree, two different video cards with the problem not changing does tend to rule out the video memory. |
#18
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How reliable is Memtest86+?
On 2011-04-05, Nil wrote:
On 04 Apr 2011, ShadowTek wrote in alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt: 4 passes at 2.5 hours is nowhere near enough to be considered thorough. Probably not, but I've been trying to get this thing back on its feet quickly. I didn't realize it would be such a problem. Anyway, I don't think it's the RAM. I've tried running it just one of the two memory sticks, then the other. The computer crashes with either separately and with both. I suppose it's possible that both of them could have failed at the same time, after 5 years of good service, but I doubt it. I've also tried two different power supplies, two different video cards (the motherboard's built-in, and a separate AGP card) and checked the integrity of the hard disk multiple times. The computer crashes no matter what combination of my available hardware I install. I'm thinking it must be a failure in the motherboard, which is something I don't know how to troubleshoot, and I probably couldn't fix even if I did. It's best to have a least two of every type of thing: pci, pcie, memory, motherboard, etc.. Once your collection of junk gets to that point, testing hardware gets a lot easier since you can swap out pretty much everything.. BTW, ignore those who try to convice you that memtest is only for memory; it's great for finding *lots* of various problems. Hell, I once used it to verify that a faulty *case fan* was the cause of my instability. How did you do that? by swapping fans in and out and watching the tests fail with one of them? Memtest did give plenty of errors with the fan in, but I got lucky in detecting the culprit since the guilty fan was in the side-panel, which had to be disconnected while I had the case open. Eventually, I realized that the connection of the fan was the only difference between failing and successful runs. |
#19
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How reliable is Memtest86+?
On 2011-04-05, Paul wrote:
One thing that's hard to do in Linux, is video card stress testing. I don't have a good test case there, yet. (It's not something I work on full time, but I've put time into it in the past, without being happy with the level of expertise needed to get it going. Spending a week to set up one test case, is a non-starter :-( ) I just found this. Haven't tested it yet. http://www.phoronix-test-suite.com/?k=downloads I just install Nexuiz and walk through all the time-demos. They always get my cards nice and warm, so I figure that's a decent stress test. |
#20
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How reliable is Memtest86+?
On Tue, 5 Apr 2011 23:27:16 +0000 (UTC), ShadowTek
wrote: Memtest did give plenty of errors with the fan in, but I got lucky in detecting the culprit since the guilty fan was in the side-panel, which had to be disconnected while I had the case open. Eventually, I realized that the connection of the fan was the only difference between failing and successful runs. Sounds like the ages-ago NIC I encountered that would take out the network if you tightened down the mounting screw. (The case was warped. Once I figured it out I left the screw with simply a bit of tension on it and it worked fine.) |
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