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how to check which stick of ram is bad ?

masterac
Level 8
after so many BSOD that i can't count, multiple error at boot, and the fact that they are becoming more regular, i thought to myself.....hold on, if my pc shutdown even before i get in windows, that mean something is bad somewhere on the board and not a driver or software ....even thow most of the bsod i get are something something :

-BAD DRIVER
-CPU ERROR
-KERNEL CRASH
-GPU ERROR
-GPU DRIVER ERROR


so yeah, i have been completly ignoring that maybe one of my stick is so bad that it can work for hours sometime, and sometime crash on crash.

lately when i was playing 2 different game it would either

for game 1,
close it and that would be the end of it, i just ended up back in windows and could launch it again or do other things and it would be fine.

for game 2,
game would freeze from time to time, but working, then after few hours of play, went to bed, 8 hours later try to play again then everytime it would freeze the whole pc.


so i took out all of my ram exept for 1 stick, and so fare, the only issue i had was a bit of lag in game 1 because of the complexicy of it, but no closing of any kind or crash

now after few hours, still nothing, computer doesn't show any bsod so i am going to try game 2 and see if it work

after that i will try the same procedure with another stick, then i will slowly puting them in all together

but i am sure there is a better way to test eah stick individualy.

so any idea ?


whats my ram ?
my ram is 4 stick of the same kit of 64 gb dd4 from gskill. rated 3600 mhz, but i nevered overclocked it.


thank you to anyone that will help me ending up months of suffering not knowing what waw wrong with it, i was almost ready to buy another kit, but at 900 euro for it, i wanted to be sure that i wasn't throwing money down the drain.
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13 REPLIES 13

feedmeink
Level 12
Is ram set to 3600 in bios? Or just standard with no changes? Is your CPU overclocked? If you are only concerned with testing ram for errors, I use memtest pro and a program called ramtest. Ramtest tests quickly and also stresses cache for cpu. Memtestpro is good at catching errors also

xeromist
Moderator
Feedmeink already said most of it but I'll just add that HCI Memtest doesn't require you to purchase the pro version and has a free version. The Pro version isn't expensive though. That is the easiest way to test individual sticks: put one in, run memtest

Regarding your stability, sometimes you might find 4 sticks unstable on the same settings but all test fine individually. This could be an indication you are asking too much of the integrated memory controller on the CPU. You either need to clock the memory lower, loosen timings, or increase memory controller voltages (BE CAREFUL)
A bus station is where a bus stops. A train station is where a train stops. On my desk, I have a work station…

xeromist wrote:
Feedmeink already said most of it but I'll just add that HCI Memtest doesn't require you to purchase the pro version and has a free version. The Pro version isn't expensive though. That is the easiest way to test individual sticks: put one in, run memtest

Regarding your stability, sometimes you might find 4 sticks unstable on the same settings but all test fine individually. This could be an indication you are asking too much of the integrated memory controller on the CPU. You either need to clock the memory lower, loosen timings, or increase memory controller voltages (BE CAREFUL)


i bought the pro version few years bach, what i didn't know is that the link only work 7 hours, i wrote back to the site asking for another one, so far no response, does anyone got it and can send it to me ?

xeromist
Moderator
I agree that's annoying. 😞 I'm not going to violate their license though. Hopefully they get back to you.
A bus station is where a bus stops. A train station is where a train stops. On my desk, I have a work station…

xeromist wrote:
I agree that's annoying. 😞 I'm not going to violate their license though. Hopefully they get back to you.



its ok, they send me a mail with it inside, i will run it all night with one stick to see....what stick, get it ?:cool:

since i run a threadripper, can i run smaller quantity of ram but on more instance ? i suppose the one already at 2700% is the one only running 848 mb

======== Starting new MemTest session ========
MemTest PRO 6.1 (c) 2018, HCI Design (http://hcidesign.com/memtest)
NOTE: greater than 100% coverage is possible. Each 100% indicates a thorough testing of all allocated RAM, however, intermittent errors may take multiple 100% cycles to be detected.

[16200] Tue Jan 29 23:35:42 2019 >> Test started. Allocated 2711 MB of memory for testing.

======== Starting new MemTest session ========
MemTest PRO 6.1 (c) 2018, HCI Design (http://hcidesign.com/memtest)
NOTE: greater than 100% coverage is possible. Each 100% indicates a thorough testing of all allocated RAM, however, intermittent errors may take multiple 100% cycles to be detected.

[8704] Wed Jan 30 03:09:18 2019 >> Test started. Allocated 848 MB of memory for testing.

======== Starting new MemTest session ========
MemTest PRO 6.1 (c) 2018, HCI Design (http://hcidesign.com/memtest)
NOTE: greater than 100% coverage is possible. Each 100% indicates a thorough testing of all allocated RAM, however, intermittent errors may take multiple 100% cycles to be detected.

[17384] Wed Jan 30 03:09:18 2019 >> Test started. Allocated 3397 MB of memory for testing.

======== Starting new MemTest session ========
MemTest PRO 6.1 (c) 2018, HCI Design (http://hcidesign.com/memtest)
NOTE: greater than 100% coverage is possible. Each 100% indicates a thorough testing of all allocated RAM, however, intermittent errors may take multiple 100% cycles to be detected.

[8712] Wed Jan 30 03:09:18 2019 >> Test started. Allocated 3397 MB of memory for testing.

======== Starting new MemTest session ========
MemTest PRO 6.1 (c) 2018, HCI Design (http://hcidesign.com/memtest)
NOTE: greater than 100% coverage is possible. Each 100% indicates a thorough testing of all allocated RAM, however, intermittent errors may take multiple 100% cycles to be detected.

[16456] Wed Jan 30 03:09:18 2019 >> Test started. Allocated 3396 MB of memory for testing.

ThrashZone
Level 10
Hi,
There are free memory tests too
memtest86+ also memtest86
DDR4 some actually say memtest86 is best
But just make a cd/ flash drive with it and boot to it with two sticks and see what happens
No errors do the other two
No errors do all four.

https://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/105647-ram-test-memtest86.html
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]

ThrashZone wrote:
DDR4 some actually say memtest86 is best


Including yourself....that's one in total 😮

For broken memory test 1 stick at a time with memtest86, but in case of instability I recommend HCI memtest to pop out random stability issues aka memory settings/voltage used. 400+% with all the available RAM memory in use and testing all the memory sticks installed, if less than 64GB then go for 800%+, that is usually enough for myself to get rid of non bug related crashes in games etc.