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New memory installed, found memory error

T

tomellis

Junior Member
I installed an additional 2GB memory into my box... and just for the heck of it I ran Vista's "Memory Diagnostics Tool". To my suprise during the first check, it resulted in an error detected in the memory. I rebooted the computer and performed the test again, and the error never occured. I performed the test yet again in "Extended" mode (more exhastive) and never got an error.

The first and only time I received the error would indicate it is a "soft / transient error" rather than a full blown consistent error in a specific segment of a memory dram.

My question is... if I cannot replicate the error, and my system isn't exhibiting stability problems when it is up and running, should I be contemplating return of the memory - or is it expected to occasionally receive a "rouge error".

Anyone's opinion on the matter would be greatly appreciated, as the information out on the web for this matter has been sparce at best.
 

Hi, thanks for your response.

I purchased 2 Kingston KTD-DM8400A/1G memory modules (DDR2-533) for my Dell Dimension XPS Gen3 that already had 2 Samsung 512MB memory modules in the system; making for a total of 3GB system memory. They were properly installed in pairs, keeping the old and new modules in seperate bank pairs; and I was properly grounded to the system during installation.

The problem with determining if it is the new memory or not is that I cannot replicate the error again, so I do not know if it was the old memory or new memory that caused that once off error - even by manually testing each module (by means of removal). If the error was consistent, it would be a piece of cake. Hmmmm!

Thanks again, I look forward to your response.

 
What I would do, is make a Memtest86 boot CD from http://www.memtest86.com, boot the system from that CD instead of from the hard drive, and make it run tests all night. It'll keep looping the test suite and accumulate a Pass/Fail report as it goes. In the morning, see if the report is good or bad.

Next phase of testing: fire up your most demanding 3D games and frag 'til your eyeballs fall out 😀 while blasting your favorite CD and maybe running a disk defragmentation or an exhaustive virus scan. This puts the system under more real-world load due to the power consumption of the video card and drives. If it handles that without crashes, and passes Memtest86 tests, I'd let it ride.
 
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