Author Topic: Ram Testing Utilities (Read 624 times)

bloom25 · « **on:** December 16, 2001, 01:37:00 AM »

Do any of you know of any freeware (or shareware) ram testing utilities that work in Win2k?

My P3 450 system here gave me a black screen on Windows 2k bootup and checked the file system and removed a .tmp file. Concerned I ran a standard scandisk, which showed no problems. After the next reboot when I was looking at the application log files the system locked up totally. (No reponse to Ctrl-alt-del, which in win2k is usually not good.) Next I decided it'd be good to run a complete (sector scan) scandisk, which uncovered one minor error in a file and corrected it, but no bad sectors. This in my mind rules out the harddrive for the most part.

My guess at this point is it was either a bug, or maybe a bad stick of ram. (I put a new 128 MB stick in when I installed win2k on this machine a week ago.) Unfortunately I don't have access to a ram testing utility here, so I wanted to know if any of you guys knew of one?

(My only other guess is that the video card might be going out.)

Tonight I installed quite a few programs on this system, they *could* be related. First I installed AH on this partition and it seems to work fine. After a reboot I installed a new critical update from microsoft released on the 13th (not on Windows Update yet) that fixes a number of serious IE 6 (and IE 5.5) security holes. This patch required a reboot, and it was on the next reboot that the "black screen" startup hard drive check occured. This patch has a file name of q313675. I'd be wary of installing it, even though Microsoft deems it critical, as it may be the root cause.

System:

P3 450 on Intel SE440BX-2 board
256 MB PC 100 ram
20 GB WD ATA 100 drive
Win 2k sp2
Diamond Viper V770 Ultra running 12.41 drivers

capt. apathy · « **Reply #1 on:** December 16, 2001, 02:13:00 AM »

i use mem test v2.7 but i'm not sure where i got it. you make a boot disk so it works with any OS i think.

[ 12-16-2001: Message edited by: capt. apathy ]

weazel · « **Reply #2 on:** December 16, 2001, 09:12:00 AM »

Memtest86 is a free stand-alone bootable utility.

It catches more errors than most testing programs. By using a bootable floppy, you can tell for sure if the problem lies with the memory or the operating system.

Memtest86

A must have utility for anyone <me> using the ECS K7S5A mobo.

Jag34 · « **Reply #3 on:** December 16, 2001, 05:16:00 PM »

Here are two sites to download memory tester's.
hcidesign.com and www.simmtester.com this one you can make a booter disk and test your memory.

Jag34

[ 12-16-2001: Message edited by: Jag34 ]

SOB · « **Reply #4 on:** December 16, 2001, 05:22:00 PM »

There's a facility in Spain that tested RAM once, but strangely they found nothing wrong with him.

SOB

Staga · « **Reply #5 on:** December 16, 2001, 06:39:00 PM »

Maverick · « **Reply #6 on:** December 16, 2001, 10:50:00 PM »

Quote

Originally posted by SOB:
There's a facility in Spain that tested RAM once, but strangely they found nothing wrong with him.

SOB

This is quite true, but you left one other finding out. They didn't find anything right about him either! <GDR>

K West · « **Reply #7 on:** December 17, 2001, 02:40:00 PM »

memtest is good. It caught a bad stick of 128mb pc133 I had when Memdoc did not.

Memtest creates a boot disk that you use and it runs the various test before Windows or any OSload.

Westy

sprint · « **Reply #8 on:** December 19, 2001, 10:18:00 PM »

Well I used Simmtester V1.45 last nite and it didn't catch the bad stick of ram ... if it did its job it would off saved me about 5 hours of time.
Memtester would have to be better.

sprint