I'm scared to use memtest64

[Rock N Roll Rebel]

I tried it on my system a few weeks ago and after it was done I had to hard restart because my start button would not work and I could not open anything or close what i had open plus my screen went black and came back. it did find errors in the second pass I only ran it for two passes. is my memory bad?

 

[sneekypeet]

I could not open anything or close what i had open plus my screen went black and came back. it did find errors in the second pass I only ran it for two passes. is my memory bad?

That is the important bit. It would appear that faulty memory was stressed too far, and freaked out causing the PC to "freeze". Secondly, if Memtest is showing errors, in itself means the memory is either bad or improperly configured. Could be the density causing the issue if we are addressing the system in your specs, maybe just need some northbridge volts.

If it is int he AMD rig, sadly I am out as my last AMD rig was socket 939, and I am sure things have changed since then

 

[Rock N Roll Rebel]

thanks for the reply one thing is this board is fineky about memory I did have the timings at factory settings and at 2800mhz now I got them at 2400mhz it would not boot at any higher. I'm going to test with memtest86 v7 I will let you know how that gos

 

[evernessince]

Due to the nature of MemTest, it also has to test the CPU and motherboard somewhat so it is possible that they are causing the issue as well. Major companies like Corsair test Memory one stick at a time, because it is nearly statstically impossible for both sticks of RAM to be bad. I would highly recommend that you do this first.

 

[Mussels]

update your BIOS to whatever the latest is, and run the RAM at lower speeds - 32GB of double sided ram is not going to get high speeds without overvolting the ram and SoC on ryzen

 

[W1zzard]

I tried it on my system a few weeks ago and after it was done I had to hard restart because my start button would not work and I could not open anything or close what i had open plus my screen went black and came back. it did find errors in the second pass I only ran it for two passes. is my memory bad?

Some system lag is normal and expected because memory used by other programs has to be freed up so it can be tested.

If you get errors reported though then either your memory is bad, or your memory settings in BIOS are too aggressive. There's also a low probability that too high CPU OC or damaged CPU can cause memory errors.

 

[Rock N Roll Rebel]

I tested the memory with memtest86 v7.4 for 4 hours two passes I know that is not a lot of passes but 4 hours is a long time. probably because I was testing 32gb but there were no errors with that software and no errors because I lowered the speed from 2800mhz to 2400mhz hey Wizzard what is the best way too use memtest64? I mean last time I used it it was set to use max memory I think that is why it caused my screen to go black then nothing worked tell I rebooted plus my memory speed was too high

 

[W1zzard]

You can test with a smaller test size which will leave some free memory for other apps to stay more responsive.

If your system is stable then it will just take long to react while testing all memory, it should never crash.

 

[Rock N Roll Rebel]

lol, I just got back from a test it looped 2 times like I told it to. I set the memory test size to 23552mb did this before you responded but it finished with no errors afterwards the system locked up had to hit the reset button

 

[basco]

newest bios for your motherboard is loaded?

 

[Rock N Roll Rebel]

I'm using the newest beta bios 3101 for me that is the best one most stable I've tried all of them

 

[Kursah]

How about the latest stable BIOS/EFI then?

 

[Rock N Roll Rebel]

if I try 1701 or 3008 it won't boot at any speed other then 2133mhz probably because my ram is not on the Dram QVL list

 

[crazyeyesreaper]

If your running four sticks of memory and they are dual sided thats likely your problem. Ryzen memory controller is not found of four sticks let alone dual sided memory especially at higher speeds.

Memory is very much at this point tuned for specific platforms. While I do not remember all the details there are a few ways to fix issues. In your case I would test 1 stick at a time if all pass then try 2 sticks if two sticks pass try them in other DIMM slots if they pass again swap out. Troubleshooting problems is never quick and easy and if you skip doing things properly because your in a rush dont be surprised if the quick fixes you try end up failing.

Test it the proper way and go through the process to make sure everything is running properly.

 

[jaggerwild]

They fixed the 2 slot issue with Ryzen? Back on topic, sorry..........

 

[eidairaman1]

If you are not locking up or BSODing in games, daily use you should be ok.

 

[notb]

If your running four sticks of memory and they are dual sided thats likely your problem.

This.

my ram is not on the Dram QVL list

And this!

Seriously, with all the fuss about Ryzen memory issues, which you must have missed somehow (welcome to the Zen land, BTW), you've even ignored the QVL.

It's very likely this setup will not work. Either don't OC or look for new RAM.
If you can take paid overtime at work or make something extra on the side, these would be best ways of spending time on fixing this problem.

If you are not locking up or BSODing in games, daily use you should be ok.

Man... it's that New Age testing methodology again. Why do you guys even run stress tests?

 

[Rock N Roll Rebel]

maybe I'll sell my corsair ram and then buy the right ram for the platform

 

[eidairaman1]

@notb it is known as not jacking with it, sometimes testing can be obsessive and wasteful, just like frame counters playing games...

 

[Rock N Roll Rebel]

maybe with the next bios I'll have better luck after all right now I'm using a beta bios

 

[eidairaman1]

maybe with the next bios I'll have better luck after all right now I'm using a beta bios

Check your private messages, or the envelope icon

 

[Mussels]

They fixed the 2 slot issue with Ryzen? Back on topic, sorry..........

no, they didnt - they made more memory compatible, but running 8 banks of ram (4x double sided sticks) is likely to lock people at 2133mhz

 

[notb]

@notb it is known as not jacking with it, sometimes testing can be obsessive and wasteful, just like frame counters playing games...

Testing is always obsessive. That's the whole point of testing! But it's only wasteful if you play it safe.
I'm starting to think some people do benchmarks / stability tests for fun. So when the test is passed, great. And when it's not, people instantly fall into this "oh whatever, I'll be just gaming anyway" and "even if it crashes from time to time - so what?".

I test PCs to know how stable they are, because:
1) I don't want to replace broken things all the time,
2) I run a lot of heavy computations when I'm out and I would be pretty pissed if the PC crashed.
And I really hate running tests. It is hard work. And boring. And the PC is unusable for hours (should be, if you're doing this properly).
Oh man... I even test my home appliances. Actually, it's way more important than testing PCs. I've just bought a washing machine. I tried all programs at full temp (some twice) before I decided it can be left working at night or when I'm outside.

 

[John Naylor]

1. I run memtest for minimum of 12 hours .... usually 24.

2. I don't see the logic in starting the tests 1 stick at a time ... been building PCs since early 90s and have had less than a handful of bad sticks. So let's be generous and say 10% chance of failure per build (5% on each stick).

a) Testing 2/2 sticks at a time w/ 12 hour tests means 120 hours on 10 builds.
b) With that assumed 10, one build will be an issue... so will spend an extra 12-24 hours testing those 2 sticks one at a time ... Thats 132 to 144 hours

Doing 1 stick at a time, that's 240 hours

3. I recommend adding all the RAM ya want from the getgo .... 2 x 8 GB is much better then 2 x 4GB now and 2 x 4GB later. First, having 4 sticks to manage over 2 oft means lower CPU OCs ...2nd, even is same brand same model is "iffy".

a) RAM from separate packages is not guaranteed to manufacturer to work together, s if it doesn't no recourse.
b) Sometimes your may find yaself where same make and model aren't available. Once was asked to add 2 more sticks to a Corsair RAM equipped box and the only RAM with matchin specs was GSkills. My son's box (Mushkin) also was felling its age and same specs so I bought two packages. The Gskills would not play well together in ether box. I tried th 4 Gskills in the users box and they worked fine. I added the users original Corrsairs to my sons Mushkin equipped bix and also worked fine.
c) Saw this again with DDR3 on Z87 .... user had Corsair Vegeance Pro DDR3-2400 2 x 8Gb and wanted to go to 4 x 8GB. Purchased another pair but of course was later version. The initial version had 10-12-12-28 timings ... the 2nd pair was after version 4.51 and it has 10-12-12-31. Even dropping the timings to the 10-12-12-31 didn't work. After some research found out that Corsair stopped using the premium Hynix modules after 4.51 and switched to another source. Send the new Corsair's back, purchased a set of Mushkin 2400 (10-12-12-28) with Hynix modules and they worked just fine.

In short, nothing to be worried about running memtest, just gotta be careful on how you interpret results and do intensive research when ya find an incompatibility.

 

[eidairaman1]

1. I run memtest for minimum of 12 hours .... usually 24.

2. I don't see the logic in starting the tests 1 stick at a time ... been building PCs since early 90s and have had less than a handful of bad sticks. So let's be generous and say 10% chance of failure per build (5% on each stick).

a) Testing 2/2 sticks at a time w/ 12 hour tests means 120 hours on 10 builds.
b) With that assumed 10, one build will be an issue... so will spend an extra 12-24 hours testing those 2 sticks one at a time ... Thats 132 to 144 hours

Doing 1 stick at a time, that's 240 hours

3. I recommend adding all the RAM ya want from the getgo .... 2 x 8 GB is much better then 2 x 4GB now and 2 x 4GB later. First, having 4 sticks to manage over 2 oft means lower CPU OCs ...2nd, even is same brand same model is "iffy".

a) RAM from separate packages is not guaranteed to manufacturer to work together, s if it doesn't no recourse.
b) Sometimes your may find yaself where same make and model aren't available. Once was asked to add 2 more sticks to a Corsair RAM equipped box and the only RAM with matchin specs was GSkills. My son's box (Mushkin) also was felling its age and same specs so I bought two packages. The Gskills would not play well together in ether box. I tried th 4 Gskills in the users box and they worked fine. I added the users original Corrsairs to my sons Mushkin equipped bix and also worked fine.
c) Saw this again with DDR3 on Z87 .... user had Corsair Vegeance Pro DDR3-2400 2 x 8Gb and wanted to go to 4 x 8GB. Purchased another pair but of course was later version. The initial version had 10-12-12-28 timings ... the 2nd pair was after version 4.51 and it has 10-12-12-31. Even dropping the timings to the 10-12-12-31 didn't work. After some research found out that Corsair stopped using the premium Hynix modules after 4.51 and switched to another source. Send the new Corsair's back, purchased a set of Mushkin 2400 (10-12-12-28) with Hynix modules and they worked just fine.

In short, nothing to be worried about running memtest, just gotta be careful on how you interpret results and do intensive research when ya find an incompatibility.

I have seen this happen with kingston too during the sdram days (been doing this nearly 20 years now )