Memtest86 Failure Curiosities

Question

Okay, so my memory issue is getting stranger.

I finally got it to boot with all 4 DIMM slots full.

Had to reset CMOS, unplug machine for several minutes, do a little dance, make a little love, get down tonight ....

Honestly, I was just throwing every esoteric thing in the book to get the RAM to boot and it finally did. I would not be able to replicate the steps I took to get it done. Let's just say that I am not a fan of the A04 BIOS as it seems to choke on memory changes ... so don't change memory stuff in A04.

Now that I have the stick in, I ran Memtest86 from a boot CD. Tons of errors. Just tons. Something like 430 errors.

Downloaded the latest version 3.4 of Memtest86. Booted from CD. Tons of errors on test #2, then hangs. The test could not run more than 1 minute without spitting out errors and locking up, so these errors were obviously not hard to find.

But when I booted into Windows and Ran Prime 95 Blend (which showed about 95% memory usage after running 7.5 hours overnight), no errors were shown.

I can render video and play graphically intensive games, and it SEEMS fine for the few hours I have done it. I run the window version of Memtest ... no Errors.

But, Memtest86 is the "gold standard" memory testing app since it uses 99.9% of the memory and runs from outside of Windows, and if it shows errors, then there are probably issues with the memory.

I'm just not sure why I don't get these errors from within Windows with "torture testing" applications.

With the number of errores Memtest86 is spitting out, you would think the thing would be crashing left and right.

Is anyone else with 4GB of 1066Mhz EPP RAM and A04 Bios? If so, can you run Memtest86 V3.4 and see if your RAM is good?

I would like to rule this being a BIOS issue. I'm not sure if I can RMA the RAM simply based on bad Memtest86 results, although such results are very concerning.

xcator · Answer

download memtest86+ and make bootable floppy or cd and run. do you get errors?   if so, test one dimm at a time in slot 1, till you find the bad dimm.  If each dimm checks out fine in slot 1, repeat in slot 2 and so on till you checked all 4 slots.     you did not say what system you have....what do the diagnostic lights indicate on boot? any beeps on boot?

DELL-Chris M · Answer

PaulTech, To be RMAed, the Dell memory must fail the Dell diagnostics. Most 3rd party applications cannot read OEM (original equipment manufacturer) hardware correctly.

PaulTech · Answer

Thanks, Chris. I will give Diagnostics a try. I probably should have thought of that sooner.

DELL-Chris M · Answer

PaulTech, Are all 4 sticks identical (manufacturer, etc.) ?

PaulTech · Answer

I didn't fare much better with Dell Diagnostics.

After only two seconds, it failed.

"Data Bus Stress Test

Address=1_0e88bga8h, Actual=FFEFFFFH, Expected=FFFFFFFF, Ambiguous SMBIOS Data"

I haven't a clue as to what that means.

Windows runs fine (at least as well as Windows CAN run), but it won't pass any DOS test I throw at it.

PaulTech · Answer

They are the sticks that shipped with the machine. Corsair Dominator XM2 PC8500 sticks. They all have the same specs and markings on the modules, and worked just fine until this week.

They actually work fine now from within Windows itself, but any benchmark or test not launched from within Windows will throw out a failure.

Running several instances of the "Windows Memtest" program from within windows, or even running Orthos or Prime 95 for many hours will not produce any errors.

Only diagnostic programs launched before windows loads will show failures.

xcator · Answer

run memtest86+ (not memtest) as explained above...   or tell Dell to send out 4 new dimms... Message Edited by xcator on 01-24-2008 09:26 PM

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Memtest86 Failure Curiosities

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