MemTest-86 v3.2

[StoneSanford]

Celeron 851.8mhz
L1 cache: 32 8351mb/s
L2 cache: 128k 3785mb/s

memory: 128 313mb/s

chipset: vt82c691/693a/694x

Could anyone tell me which test I should run to test the ram memory on this setup?

How long should the test take?

What should I like for in the results if I suspect a bad ram chip?

Thanks

[fishybawb]

Make a bootdisk of Memtest:

http://www.memtest.org/

Boot off the disk and leave it for a few hours at least. The number of errors (if any) will be shown on screen.

[Rocketmech]

I usually press "c" after Memtest86 starts, and chose to include the extented tests. For your rig it should take about an 1 hour or less to run thru all the tests once . No errors are allowed. I consider 1 pass thru all tests without errors , GOOD. Usually if the ram is bad it shows up in the first test run.

[StoneSanford]

Thanks

[Peter M]

Just let it run its default suite, or if you please, do as Rocketmech said for the full set. Typically, "stuck bit" errors are exposed by the first three tests, while timing problems and the likes are mostly detected by tests #4 and #5.

Depending on system speed and RAM size, the test may take several hours to complete.

[Midknyte]

I typically run it through at least 1 pass. More if I have the time. I just ran a scan on a PIII system with 384MB ram. It took around 45min to complete 1 pass.

[StoneSanford]

OK.

This machine was running Win ME. It would not boot properly. I formatted and tried to reinstall ME. The installation stopped halfway through and I had to reboot, after which it continued with the install. So, I tried again, just to be certain it was not a one time quirk. I formatted, did the install and this time halfways through I started getting error messages. ( I don't remember what they were, sorry). After pressing cancel or ok several times the install continued and ME loaded and booted.

When I tried installing a program, (AVG antivirus, MusicMatch JB, Power Archiver, eg) I'd sometimes get an error message like "file not found" or "cannot access..." or some other out of place message. Maybe the program would install and work ok or maybe I'd get an error message when I'd try to start it.

Also, after rebooting several times I'd get a corrupt registry message and Windows would have to restart to repair it. ( This was fairly consistant, after rebooting 2 or 3 times it would do this).

I formatted again and installed win98se. Things seemed to go alot better. However after it was up and running I began getting odd and out of place error messages again. For instance, I ran a 2 hour Divx movie from a CD with media player 3 times in a row. I stopped it and when I tried to played it again I a got a message that started " An error occured in Internet Explorer...." and I had to reboot to be able to play the movie again.

I ran MemTest-86 and immediately I began getting errors. After 5 or 6 passes it show 2000+ errors. I replaced the Ram chip and ran the test and it came up clean. I reinstalled Me and the machine has been running fine for 4 days now.

Thank to all who posted and Happy Holidays.