Memtest errors in WinXP, but not DOS?

[Severian]

Got a BSOD a couple times with the error code "PFN_LIST_CORRUPT", which a bit of Googling about led me to the notion that this was likely a RAM issue. I have the usual armament of testing utilities, including memtest for windows, which immediately detects errors and recommends replacing my RAM. But when I run memtest86+ from a boot disk or my BIOS (it's included in my BIOS) I get no errors at all for hours and hours on end.

The first time this happened I goosed the voltage up on the RAM a tenth of a volt, and memtest for windows quit detecting errors. Unfortunately the BSOD is back, and it just seems odd to me that I can get memtest errors in WinXP but not from the boot environment.

Before I go to the trouble of RMA'ing my Ballistix, anyone have any ideas on what would cause this? I can't see replacing the memory if memtest86+ passes it without any problems.

My rig:

Athlon64 X2 4200+ @2.75ghz @1.5v w/Big Typhoon
2x1gb Crucial Ballistix PC4000 @250mhz @2.93v
DFI Lanparty Ultra-D unmodified
eVga GF7900GT KO not oc'ed
Creative Audigy ZS
Lots of hard drives
DVD-ROM/ DVD-RW
Rosewill 550w PSU

Yep, it's overclocked quite a bit, but has been quite stable. My only issue has been the PWMIC can get warm, so I've been working on getting that cooled more efficiently. It idles at 47c and rises to 63c when gaming or video editing. The cpu idles at 33c and gets as high as 48 during the same things. All PSU rails are within specs in MBM.

The BSOD still occurs when everything is set to stock. Any ideas?

thanks

 

[Frintin]

Windows file systemish stuff is not liking how your memory is running it looks like. DOS memory addressing way different stuff so the error may never show up like in Windows is my guess.

 

[Ultralight]

How old is your RAM? Crucial had to yank their Ballistix PC4000 off the market because of too many issues of what you report -- especially in their 2x1 gig packages. I first came across this at the DFI site forums over a year ago. People were having so many issues that Crucial's own tech support would post over there trying to resolve the problem.

Came to find out Crucial had issues with their Ballistix 3200 as well which scared me because I had purchased 2 gigs from NewEgg right about the time the problem was made public. Usually it would run well until after 6 months; then people would have all kinds of errors. Luckily I received a good batch.

Shame, too, because Crucial makes very good RAM.

 

[Severian]

My RAM is about 16 months old. It isn't the newer "Tracer" stuff that came out later, and has already been RMA'd once by the original owner. I bought the new sticks Crucial sent to him. I've never been able to duplicate his performance with these DIMMs, but they've been rock solid at their rated speed of 250mhz, except for these memtest errors in WinXP.

Just seems odd that memory would give errors inside Windows but not in the boot environment, I've never seen that before.

I'll have to move these dimms to another machine and test them there, I guess.

thanks

 

[RebateMonger]

Don't forget that memory testers aren't just testing memory. The CPU is, by necessity, involved in the test, as well as many other chps on the motherboard. There could be differences in the way that those non-memory chips are addressed in Windows versus out-of-Windows.