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Memtest-86 Vs Prime95

P

Peridium

Senior member
What program is better at testing the memory system?

Here is my setup:
2 X 512MB TwinMOS PC3200 (Winbond CH-5)
2-7-3-3 Timings

Abit NF7-S V2.0
Athlon XP 1700+ (JIUHB, DLT3C) @ 2200MHz (220 FSB x 10)

I've run Memtest-86 with cache on and all tests through 16 passes overnight with no errors at all.

However, when I run Prime95 it fails in about 10 minutes. So why would Memtest-86 not produce any errors?

The CPU is not the bottleneck as it was previously running at 2.4GHz without any problems in Prime95.

Any comments or suggestions? Thanks for your input.

 
Try upping the voltage of your CPU and see if that fixes it. It is possible that your processor cannot handle that FSB at any voltage. My XP1700 DUT3C doesnt even like 185 or higher at any voltage but can handle high speeds set by multipliers .
 
Yep.. since you've ran memtest86 fine for overnight, it's likely that you CPU isn't receiving enough juice for the overclock. What is you current Vcore? Raise it in increments of 0.025v

Edit: whoops 😱

 
Originally posted by: marvie
Yep.. since you've ran memtest86 fine for overnight, it's likely that you CPU isn't receiving enough juice for the overclock. What is you current Vcore? Raise it in increments of 0.25
Click to expand...

i think you mean .025

🙂
 
How long should memtest-86 run to ensure stability? Does it actually have to run overnight? Or would 2-3 hours suffice?

Thanks
 
Originally posted by: TygGer
How long should memtest-86 run to ensure stability? Does it actually have to run overnight? Or would 2-3 hours suffice?

Thanks
Click to expand...


The common belief is that 10 passes with ALL tests enabled with no errors is the solid minimum for considering a memory configuration stable at a given speed/timing. The amount of time that takes all depends on how much memory you have (more = longer).
 
Run it for however long you are comfortable. If you are not going to be doing anything that would be destroyed from a crash than 2-3 hours is fine. Most errors are discovered very quickly. I have had one error discovered after 3 hours once. Nothing ever beyond that.
 
Originally posted by: bgeh
memtest86 tests the CPU cache and RAM
prime95 however stresses the whole computer
Click to expand...

Ummm... memtest86 pretty much just tests the memory, including cache memory.
Prime95 pretty much just tests the CPU... it has to use RAM too obviously, but it's no where near as thorough as memtest86... and in no way does Prime95 stress the WHOLE computer. The only way to stress the whole computer is to do 2 things at once. Encode some divx while you loop 3DMark... that will stress the CPU, RAM, hard drive, video card, and the motherboard chipset.
 
Update:

I took out one of the modules and now I can run Prime95 without any errors. I tested both modules individually at 220 FSB and found that only one of the modules could run without errors...

Why didn't Memtest-86 give me any errors when I was running Dual Channel even though one of the modules couldn't even run 220 FSB in Single?
 
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