Computer troubleshooting - RAM testing utility

[WaRmAsTeR]

Hi,

I have a friend whose computer has some problems and he brought it to me and aked me to repair it...

The computer sometimes works correctly for some time and then all of a sudden, a blue screen appears and right away the computer reboots.

First thing I did was clean his drive and do a fresh install of XP. This did not change anything and installing Windows actually took a few trials before getting it to succeed.

Then I thought it could be the hard drive that was defective, so I replaced it with one I had, did not change the behaviour.

Then I replaced the power supply, cause I thought the reboot issue might have to do with the power, but this does not seem to be the case...

Now looking at the error messages that I can actually read and thinking about it, I think the RAM may be the problem, but it makes me wonder why sometimes it works and sometimes it does not... I'll try another stick of RAM.
Do you know any utility that could check if the RAM is defective or not, because I would like to make sure I know where the problem lies before going out and buying some parts.

The system is :
ASUS A7V
Athlon 900Mhz
256Mb PC100
Hercules GF MX400
Maxtor 30Gb

Also if you have any idea or anything you think about that could help me find the problem, I'd be happy to hear them!

Thanks!

[LaValva]

http://www.memtest86.com/ for the memory tester.

Also, try flashing the bios, Asus has had issues with some types of RAM in their early bios stages, I had a problem with mine before.

[phelan1777]

can tell you off the bat that XP eats up memory from the boot, so 256 is not really a lot........

just my .02

[WaRmAsTeR]

I don't think that having 256mb of memory in Win XP is a problem... My brother runs XP on a PII 266 with 256mb of ram and i can tell you that it is impressively smooth.

Since changing the power supply, the computer seems to be working properly, even though I got some error messages during the Windows installation. I will run the ram test to see what I get.

Also what do you recommend I run to assess the stability of the computer? Something that would be memory, CPU, hdd intensive but I don't know what!

Thanks!

[LaValva]

Originally posted by WaRmAsTeR
I don't think that having 256mb of memory in Win XP is a problem... My brother runs XP on a PII 266 with 256mb of ram and i can tell you that it is impressively smooth.

He's right about the memory, XP is a memory hog. You can get away with 256, but it will feel like a new computer with 512. If he's not doing anything except word processing/e-mail i wouldn't worry, but if he's planning on playing any games whatsoever, definitely upgrade.

[alwayshungry4more]

Originally posted by WaRmAsTeR

Also what do you recommend I run to assess the stability of the computer? Something that would be memory, CPU, hdd intensive but I don't know what!

Thanks!

errors during install is a good indication of (bad) system stability. lol.


run an installed game or two. you could try 3dmark too. or any of those distributed screen savers like SETI@home or Folding...

memtest should easily identify any bad RAM for you though.

[WaRmAsTeR]

Hi,
Here's my follow up!

Well I ran memtest for the night... After 10 hours I had 1500 errors!
So well I guess this was the problem. I then took 256mb PC133 from my brother's computer, put that in, ran the test for 2 hours, no error! I put back the old ram in, I still get errors, so RAM is the problem!

But then I put the bad RAM (which is PC100 I think) in my brother's Pentium 2, run the test, after an hour I have no error!

So what must I conclude about those results?
I don't know what's happening!

[alwayshungry4more]

Originally posted by WaRmAsTeR
So what must I conclude about those results?
I don't know what's happening!

just to confirm you did this:
if you have two sticks in your computer, run memtest with only one stick in there at a time. that should identify which module is causing the problem.

usually one of them will go bad. if no errors were found, you now have to assume that there is a compatibility issue between the two modules. in other words, they don't play nice together.

if your module works in your brother's computer, maybe there is a compatibility issue between the RAM and mobo (not sure though - as hopefully you bought the correct memory for your mobo).

otherwise, you didn't run the test long enough in your bro's computer. suggest rebooting and running memtest again. (maybe ask nicely if the two of you can swap RAM! lol) i had a recent stick go bad and i had the same results: i see errors, i don't see errors, arrghh!! i just decided to swap the stick. if you see errors, get rid of it.

the only other things i can think of: 1. you have a bad memory slot on your pc. try testing in only slot 1 when running the test. then maybe run the test while the memory is in slot two..etc 2. maybe your mobo is 'dying'


keep it simple though. if you had errors on YOUR pc with YOUR memory, exchange it. call the manufacturer or the retail store (whoever) and they should swap you.

and i would advise against putting suspected bad RAM in someone else's computer (esp if they know where you live) as it could corrupt a critical file.

[WaRmAsTeR]

Thanks for your reply!

Well here's how it goes... My brother's computer (P2 266) had 256Mb of PC133, my friend's computer (Athlon 900) had 256Mb PC100. The PC100 got 15000 errors after 10 hours of memtest on my friend's computer! So I swapped both sticks... Now after 10 hours in my brother's computer, the RAM that I thought was defective hasn't given a single error!

Incompatibility I guess! So I think I'm just gonna keep both sticks the way they are now and hope it keeps working! And tell my friend that if his stick stops working in my brother's computer then he will have to buy a new stick!

[alwayshungry4more]

good job!

*fun* with computers indeed...