memtest86 - how to know

Soo... it appears that my problems do not stem from my video card, but from my RAM. I got so I am sillyI am sillyI am sillyI am sillyed off at the errors that I was getting over the weekend that I decided to start over from scratch. I formatted my main partition and reinstalled windows.

On the first reboot, I got an error saying that the registry had to be repaired and was successfully. (same error I was getting before)

Then on subsequent reboots, I was getting stop errors and a few times it would not even boot into safe mode. This is when I began to think I had a hardware failure.

SO I removed my video card and went to onboard video just to make sure it wasn't that. I checked the HD and everything there seems to be ok. Then I downloaded memtest86 to a CD and booted to that.

Immediately it started finding errors. Somewhere around 142.5mb to 152 mb, it was throwing a bunch of errors.

Well, I have 1Gb of RAM, so I let it run for a while. I checked it over 2 hours later and it was on test 6, pass 6 and the error count was up to over 300,000 errors.

That's when I shut my PC off and went to bed. But here is my question:

How do I know if both chips are bad, or just one, and does the memtest86 test ever "complete" or does it just run until you stop it?

This is all brand new RAM and I'm on the verge of calling the vendor for a RMA.

Does anyone have any insight?

If it was me id test each stick independent. IE run the comp on 512mb, test, than on the other 512.

Yes, unless you have dual banked RAM. I can't remember if memtest86 lets you run for a set number of iterations, ( I aint rebooting now just to find out!). MT86 seems to be updated regularly, so make sure you have the latest version.

I found it very useful - I was about to throw a mobo away before I discovered the RAM was stuffed.

You're not overclocking your RAM by any chance?
Or failing to give it enough DRAM refresh cycles.

Neither, Salem. I think only one of the sticks is bad, and I'll verify that when I get home.

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Yes, unless you have dual banked RAM.

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That wouldnt make a difference in the best way to test them. The best way is still individual.

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That wouldnt make a difference in the best way to test them. The best way is still individual.

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Dual banked RAM means 2 sticks are required, so if you only have 2 sticks installed, you would have to test the single stick in another machine.

>Dual banked RAM
The only I could think about is RAMBUS.... and I put up with that I am sillyI am sillyI am sillyI am silly for a couple years, after re-buying ram 2 times at a godly price I stopped and got a new setup.

Well, I tested them seperately. I ran the first DDR module for almost 4 hours which was about 18 passes. Not a single error in it. So I stopped it and ran the second module and I had errors popping up before the screen had even fully adjusted to show me the testing. So I guess I have 512 that is still good. I'll just have to get the other one replaced.