System fails memtest86 v4 spectularly but runs fine?

[mikeymikec]

My system is nearly 2 years old, and it doesn't have any stability/performance issues generally speaking. It has one issue where about once every six months if I connect a USB device to a front port, it freezes the system, but there's a sixteen-page thread on the ASUS forums for this particular board and problem.

Out of unrelated curiosity, I ran memtest86 v4.0 on my system using the CD that I've used plenty of times before on other systems. It ran for a few minutes, then logged about 100,000 errors and counting, all around the same section of memory (5MB - 30MB). In response I ran the Win7 memory diagnostic which didn't turn up anything.

Specs:

AMD Phenom II X6 1605T (960T with 2 extra cores unlocked), not overclocked, 3GHz.
Kingston HyperX 4GB DDR3-1600
ASUS M4A89GTD PRO/USB3
Gigabyte ATI HD 5770 1GB

I haven't decided whether to pursue this problem (test each memory module in turn, for example) or just put it down to a rare oddity with memtest86 and my system. Thoughts?

 

[mikeymikec]

I've just tried disabling the extra two cores and running memtest again, and it ran fine. I think I'll follow up with prime95.

 

[mikeymikec]

I think I've found the problem. memtest86 v4.0 - memtest86+ v4.2 mentions "AMD 6-core support". Google search results show other people having problems with the version I'm using.

 

[VirtualLarry]

If you are using Memtest86, and NOT "Memtest86+" (the plus is important), then I'm not surprised at the results you are getting. Memtest86 (no plus) is buggy in my experience, and not worth using.

 

[mikeymikec]

I wonder if I've interchangeably used the plus and non-plus version over the years, because the only problem I had previous to this was with =<3.4 and >4GB RAM I think.