Can Memtest-86 be wrong??

[joe360]

I ran Memtest-86 (newest version), and these are my results:

1st Pass Failing Address Good Bad Err-Bits Count Can
7 0 0000488f024 - 72.9 MB bc309266 b309266 04000000 1
7 0 0002c48e064 - 708.8 MB 791ba73f 791ba73f 04000000 1

So basically...what does that mean?

The reason why I rean Memtest-86 in the first place, was I kept getting this error in Far Cry multiplayer:

Critical Exception
Description: EXCEPTION_ACCESS_VIOLATOIN
Attempt to read from address
The memory could not be "read"

Anyone know what that one means??

Thanks!!

System Specs:

AMD-64 3000+ s754
MSI K8T Neo
Corsair 1GB PC3200 Single Channel
Asus Radeon 9600XT

 

[CTho9305]

Given that your hardware has problems, any software problems can't be properly diagnosed. However, usually RAM problems cause random problems, rather than consistent issues. The first step in handling the Far Cry issue is fixing your hardware.

 

[Nothinman]

Sure memtest could be wrong, but it would still be showing symptoms of another problem like overheating.

 

[drag]

I had a consistant problem when it came to bad ram on my parents computer.

It has a gig of ram in it and they normally just do desktop stuff on it. However 15-20 minutes into Doom3 it would simply crash the app. After that the machine was flaky.

Since Doom3 was the only thing that would use up the RAM and I guess use the RAM in a particular way, it would be the first to suffer. I figured since the only RAM errors would happen high up in the memory addressing range it contributed to it looking like it was just Doom3's fault.

Memtest86 can make mistakes, according to it's troubleshooting page when it does make a mistake it is usually something to do with how it detects the memory ranges. If it does that then usually you get lots of errors, consistantly the same, in the same address ranges.

If you get errors that are sparse and especially erratic or only every-once-in-awile then it is almost certainly a bad RAM problem.

At least that's according to the project webpage's.

Also if your using a AMD64 machine, they seem especially sensitive to RAM since the memory controller is built into the cpu... try underclocking the RAM and running a pro-longed memtest session and see if it goes away.

Also how close the RAM is to the cpu heatsink in many AMD64 machines doesn't help any. Maybe try to position a extra fan around the ram to get non-heated air on it.

Check out memtest86's webpage and read the sections on troubleshooting.