Memtest86

igibson

Member
Oct 4, 2007
50
0
0
Hi,
I'm hoping someone has more experience with this program than I do.

I've recently taken to fixing a friends computer and started with Memtest to weed out faulty memory. Before I used it on his computer I tried it on mine to make sure the image took and I found tons of errors.

What I don't understand is that I use my computer daily and have many games installed, but I've never frozen up or had a BSoD since my initial install of Vista and Memtest finds all these errors. I do currently overclock and overvolt and I've taken everything down to the stock settings and I get the same result.

Does anyone have any insight? Has this happened to anyone else? Should I even bother with it?


Thanks for your time.
 

RadiclDreamer

Diamond Member
Aug 8, 2004
8,622
40
91
If you have errors you need to work on your oc and even above that try it with no OC. Just because your machine doesnt crash it doesnt mean things are running as they should. Memory errors can cause very erratic issues.
 

ch33zw1z

Lifer
Nov 4, 2004
38,764
19,337
146
Please post the system specs. Couple things to check. Make sure you're giving the RAM enough voltage, and test each stick individually to see if it's the sticks or the mobo.

When you overclock, what method do you use for testing stability?
 

RebateMonger

Elite Member
Dec 24, 2005
11,586
0
0
I'm curious. What does the memory tester built into the Vista DVD say about your memory?

It's tough to know for sure what effect those memory errors will have.

I can say that if you have problems installing Windows or have unexplained crashes, if you run Memtest and it finds errors, then removing those errors will likely fix the problems.

And I can further say that it's ENTIRELY possible to have "zero" memory errors on a system. If I have any errors at all in a memory test, I replace the memory.

But I recall when many of us bought cheap Toshiba laptops from CompUSA a few years ago. At the same time, CompUSA was offering inexpensive memory that fit those laptops. Everybody who put that memory into those laptops experienced Memtest errors. Sometimes thousands of them. But a couple folks went ahead and started using that memory anyway and never did report any unusual behavior.
 

GaryJohnson

Senior member
Jun 2, 2006
940
0
0
On some OC geared mobos there can be BIOS settings beyond the normal frequency/voltage/timing stuff like things related to clock skew and sub timings that can cause memory instability.