Bizarre Memtest Results

[dprice5892]

I ran Memtest overnight and no errors were found. I then ran a subsequest Memtest (all Memtest runs were allowed to run overnight), where 99999 errors were displayed. The third run resulted in 24897 errors. The fourth displayed ten errors. The fifth, no errors. I am at present running Memtest on a Toshiba Satellite A75-S206; it has ran for three hours but no errors have been located. I've used several versions of Memtest, all with similiar results. Can anyone tell me if this normally happens when using Memtest????

 

[Nodsu]

Yes. Often you get passes with no errors and then passes with lots of errors.

The number of the errors is unimportant. When you have 100 000 word errors in RAM then it amounts to 400KB which is a very small area really. The location of the errors and the type of test that fails is what matters.

There are two versions of memtest: memtest86 and memtest86+. You should try them both and see if the results match.

The overnight errors may also be caused by the laptop's power management kicking in at some point for example.

 

[loners2121]

Hay i just ran memtest last night and i really have no idea how to read it.. how do i know if the ram is good or bad??? I added my system specs in the attachment.. it ran and after about 3 hours it only passed 1 and had a ton of errors.. i have to sticks of 256 installed how do i know which is bad?? and do you know where i can find a detailed discription of what i am seeing.. i am using memtest36 3.2.. thanks for your help..

 

[Nodsu]

There should be absolutely no errors.

The error line tells you what position the error occurred in (helps to find the bad stick or the memory range that you can forbid the OS to use) and the kind of test that failed (rather irrelevant, since you won't be fixing anything).