Quick way to find bad memory?

[lakedude]

So the box is fairly reliable but it does blue-screen about once a month average, usually in spurts. It will be fine for months but then it will suffer a few blue screens and be fine again.

Had "PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA" and "irql_not_less_or_equal" faults.

Loaded Ultimate Boot and ran Memtest64 4.20 for a few hours and it passed the first time.

Fired up Windows just to check a few things before I went to work, and then I was going to let Memtest run for a few hours while I was at work but Memtest failed almost right away this time.

Got 4x 4GB sticks. Is there a quick way to sort out which stick is bad? I could put them in one at a time and run Memtest but the problem seems intermittent.

 

[BrightCandle]

Its probably the third stick.

 

[sub.mesa]

Disable memory bank interleaving in the BIOS to identify the memory stick which is giving you trouble.

With memory bank interleaving enabled, all memory modules are 'interleaved' like RAID0. Thus, between 8 and 9GB you will have accessed all memory modules.

Without memory bank interleaving, the sticks should be spread regular like 0-4GB = stick 1, 4-8GB = stick 2, etc. This allows you to easily identify which stick is giving you trouble.

You should run memtest86+ no less than 12 hours and preferably even longer. Not all defective memory is identified within the first pass. To make things more complicated, some BIOS use 'training' to find the most optimal timings. Essentially this is overclocking, and it could cause one boot to use much more aggressive timings than the next time you power cycle the system. This could cause memtest86+ to be perfectly fine no matter how long you test, while a power-down-power-up cycle would show errors in memtest86+ again. This kind of memory instability can be a real pain to identify since memtest86+ can give you solid stable results, while still having memory corruption in everyday usage.

 

[blastingcap]

What sub.mesa said, and also try HCI Memtest

 

[anne704]

Bad memory can cause an assortment of different issues on your computer. Below are just a few of the possible issues you may encounter. It is important to remember that the below issues can also be caused by more than just bad memory.

 

[Mfusick]

Memetest

 

[lakedude]

Thanks for the help.

Have not found the bad stick yet.

Tried to find interleave option in BIOS, no luck. Tons of timing and voltage options but nothing I could see for interleave.

Tested one stick @ 1333 by accident, it passed but that means nothing since it should have been running 1600.

Computer software complained about low memory running on a single 4GB stick so it looks like I do need 8. 16 is overkill but memory was so cheap a few months ago.

One stick tested good @ 1600, 3 to go...

anne704 where is "Below"?

 

[WhoBeDaPlaya]

Heh, I have a single stick of OCZ Reaper HPC that will run just fine @ 1333-7-7-7-24, 1.5V, but go crying back to mama if you try to run it at its advertised 1600-6-8-6-24, 1.65V.

 

[lakedude]

It took 11 passes but I finally got an error. Funny that memtest says the problem is @ 4805MB when I'm only running a single 4GB stick???

 

[lakedude]

WhoBeDaPlaya that is some fancy memory you have!

 

[lakedude]

I finds the bad stick! The last stick (of course) failed right away @ 1600.

Note to self:

Retesting the 1st stick @ 1600 that was originally done @ 1333.

Assuming the 1st stick retests good, figure out 2 channel config and run on 2 sticks.

Determine where RAM was purchased. Return/RMA bad stick and flaky stick.

EDIT: Newegg purchase in 2012

 

[lakedude]

Special thanks to sub.mesa for pointing out how memory clocks differently depending on the "mood" of the BIOS.

This most likely explains why the machine would run fine for months (presumably clocked @ 1333) and then it would have a bunch of failures (presumably clocked @ 1600).

I figured "auto" would figure out the settings once and leave them alone but this is clearly not the case.

The speed changed automatically from 1600 down to 1333 when I added the second good stick back in.

Learn something new every day!

Got the 2 good sticks running in dual channel mode. Just need to return the 2 bad sticks now...