MemTest [EDIT] fixed the problem. Have a beer on me, thanks for the help!!!

[MIGhunter]

Is anyone using this program. I just got my floppy drive and updated my BIOS on my MB. Now all of the problems I was having are gone. I thought, what the heck, I'll run the memtest anyway. In 3 minutes I got over 200 errors. There is no way my system would be running if I got that many errors with my memory.

Also, how come WinXP and MemTest both show that I have 960MB of memory when I have 1024. My BIOS shows 1024.

 

[John]

There is no way my system would be running if I got that many errors with my memory.

Surprisingly your system will apprear to run fine. I use memtest86 all the time, find it useful, and strive for ZERO errors. Try moving the memory to different dimm slots.

 

[MIGhunter]

I have a GB (4-256 sticks) of RDRAM on a P4T533-C so there aren't any different dimms. Unless I just pull them out and put them back in a different place.

 

[sharkeeper]

Also, how come WinXP and MemTest both show that I have 960MB of memory when I have 1024. My BIOS shows 1024

What range is memtest reporting the errors? Do they happen at the same address? Are you overclocking anything?

Cheers!

 

[MIGhunter]

I am not overclocking anything. As soon as I start the program it shows errors. When I got to the 100% mark, there were over 60,000 errors. What could the problem be?

 

[John]

Take 2 sticks of ram out and run the test for a couple of passes, then test the other two sticks. Try them in different slots as well.

 

[pm]

Is anyone using this program. I just got my floppy drive and updated my BIOS on my MB. Now all of the problems I was having are gone. I thought, what the heck, I'll run the memtest anyway. In 3 minutes I got over 200 errors. There is no way my system would be running if I got that many errors with my memory.

I agree with the others... you'd be surprised at how little impact one error in memory can have on system operation and how many errors memtest will report this error as. One nice thing about ECC (something to keep in mind for future purchases). You don't have to worry especially much about memory errors since they are automatically detected.

Also, how come WinXP and MemTest both show that I have 960MB of memory when I have 1024. My BIOS shows 1024.

It's a legacy thing dating back to the 8088. The first 640K are considered "base memory".

 

[sharkeeper]

I agree with the others... you'd be surprised at how little impact one error in memory can have on system operation and how many errors memtest will report this error as. One nice thing about ECC (something to keep in mind for future purchases). You don't have to worry especially much about memory errors since they are automatically detected.

As long as the chipset and mainboard have proper parity support. My MPX2 does and I have enabled ECC Correct and Scrub in the BIOS. Funny thing is if I use the most aggressive mem timings and have NO ECC, Memtest may show two or three errors in the same places. If I enable ECC+Scrub I will see no errors even when I left it run over a long weekend! I guess ECC could be used to allow a higher overclock although I don't think that was the goal to achieve stability! 😉

In any case, something is very wrong if you're getting thousands upon thousands of errors. Memtest did have some problems where it would detect errors as falses. I've never heard of this behaviour with RDRAM though. You may want to download the newest Prime95 client and configure it to use 850 MB of physical memory and let it run for a day. You can loop the 3DMark 2001 demo at 640x480 and run P95 with 850MB for 12 hours. If it passes without Prime going yellow or the system crashing I think it's safe to say those errors reported in Memtest86 are bogus.

It's a legacy thing dating back to the 8088. The first 640K are considered "base memory".

This is true, however all of machines (for the exception of the 4GB one) always show the same amount of physical memory in Windows NT. (4.0, 5.0 and 5.1)

Cheers!

 

[MIGhunter]

Originally posted by: sharkeeper

In any case, something is very wrong if you're getting thousands upon thousands of errors. Memtest did have some problems where it would detect errors as falses. I've never heard of this behaviour with RDRAM though. You may want to download the newest Prime95 client and configure it to use 850 MB of physical memory and let it run for a day. You can loop the 3DMark 2001 demo at 640x480 and run P95 with 850MB for 12 hours. If it passes without Prime going yellow or the system crashing I think it's safe to say those errors reported in Memtest86 are bogus.

It's a legacy thing dating back to the 8088. The first 640K are considered "base memory".

This is true, however all of machines (for the exception of the 4GB one) always show the same amount of physical memory in Windows NT. (4.0, 5.0 and 5.1)

Cheers!

Ok, so where do I get Prime? And am I running both 3dmark and prime at the same time? THanks.

By the way, I spoke too soon. I did get 2 general protection faults later on in the day. Not like before but I still got them.

 

[sharkeeper]

Download Prime 95 here.

Yes you would start Prime95 and run the torture test. CAUTION: the default will allocate too much physical memory and will cause excessive disk paging. If you have 1024 Physical memory, select 700 MB. This will allow enough ram for the OS and 3DMark to run without paging to disk excessively.

GPF's are not good unless you're sure it's a program compatiblity issue or function that causes it and it can be repeated.

Cheers!

 

[MIGhunter]

I ran prime by itself and it didn't make it past 20 minutes. Now how can I tell what the problem is from here. Thanks again.
Mike

 

[sharkeeper]

Uh oh. Try removing a pair of RIMMS and repeating the tests. Although it's a PIA, you can narrow it down to a single stick of RAM with MEMTEST86. Alternatively, you could have your RAM validated by someone that has a tester. If the memory is ok, the problem lies within a timing setting in your BIOS or the motherboard itself.

Cheers!

 

[THUGSROOK]

memtest86 doesnt work on rambus

 

[MIGhunter]

Originally posted by: THUGSROOK
memtest86 doesnt work on rambus

That was going to be my next question. But there must be something wrong if prime didn't work, right? I guess that I will just have to pull out the memory modules and try them individually.

 

[John]

Originally posted by: THUGSROOK
memtest86 doesnt work on rambus

That's odd.....where did you find that information?

I pulled this from the memtest86 site:

Memtest86 supports all types of memory. If fact the test has absolutely no knowledge of the memory type nor does it need to. This not a problem or bug but is listed here due to the many questions I get about this issue.

 

[sharkeeper]

Memtest does indeed support RAMBUS. The newest revision, 2.30 is much better and supports ECC so you can actually see errors that ECC is intercepting!

I've found that a machine that gets errors immediately when the test starts will definitely have stability problems in Windows that become noticeable quickly.

Cheers!

 

[alkemyst]

are you booting memtest off a floppy??? if you run it in a window you'll get tons of errors.

You need to create a boot test, boot it, and then test.

If you are doing this you gotz problemz then 🙂

good luck

 

[alkemyst]

about the 960 versus 1024....

that may indeed be a true memory error....I had something similar with a 256MB DIMM....test each piece alone....one more than likely be full of errors or even just a few, but the rest should be 'clean'.

 

[MIGhunter]

Here is the deal. I Pulled out my memory and installed the crimms like the manual said. When I booted it told me that I had 128MB of memory. Which is funny since my chips are 256 and they go in pairs. Well, to make a long story short, I didn't feal like wasting time to pull all the memory out and test it individually. So I installed all of it back but in different slots than before. Powered up my computer. It wouldn't post, told me that I failed the memory check. Well crap. I shut it down and try again. Post right to the BIOS. Then I start thinking about what sharkeeper said about the setting. I had the memory set for 4x because that is what everyone said to do. I changed it to auto on a whim. Now everything seems to be fine. I ran Prime for like a hour without a glitch. Then ran Memtest for abuot 10 minutes without any errors. I haven't done any further testing, but this is a great start. Thanks guys.