gHacks technology news » check ram http://www.ghacks.net A technology blog covering software, mobile phones, gadgets, security, the Internet and other relevant areas. Tue, 24 Nov 2009 16:29:26 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.6 en hourly 1 Windows Memory Diagnostic http://www.ghacks.net/2008/09/08/windows-memory-diagnostic/ http://www.ghacks.net/2008/09/08/windows-memory-diagnostic/#comments Mon, 08 Sep 2008 08:06:14 +0000 Martin http://www.ghacks.net/?p=6853 Microsoft Online Crash Analysis is a website put up by Microsoft to aid users in investigating crashes, bluescreens and stop errors. Part of the service is the Windows Memory Diagnostic software which is a standalone tool that can scan the computer memory and report on errors it found.

Windows Memory Diagnostic (link, via Vishal) is a dos tool which has to be installed on a floppy drive or CD. It can only be run during system start and not from within Windows. Many users will feel uncomfortable with this procedure but those affected by crashes might probably be inclined to try everything in their might to get to the reason of the crashes.

The tool will start the computer memory check instantly after its interface has been loaded during system startup. It will run test passes and it is important to perform at least one full test pass before quitting the software program.

The first test pass is the most important one. If no errors are found it is unlikely that additional runs will find errors. If errors are found you discovered a possible source for the system crashes, bluescreens and stop errors.

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The installation should not pose difficulties for anyone. Buttons to create a startup floppy disk and to save a CD image to disk are provided upon execution. The first will create a bootable floppy disk containing the Windows Memory Diagnostic tool while the latter will create in ISO image windiag.iso that has to be burned to CD or DVD.

An alternative to Windows Memory Diagnostic is Memtest86+ which is highly recommended by computer professionals to check ram of computers. It has also be burned to CD and run during system start.

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]]> http://www.ghacks.net/2008/09/08/windows-memory-diagnostic/feed/ 5 Safe Computer Memory Upgrade http://www.ghacks.net/2008/08/14/safe-computer-memory-upgrade/ http://www.ghacks.net/2008/08/14/safe-computer-memory-upgrade/#comments Thu, 14 Aug 2008 15:19:04 +0000 Martin http://www.ghacks.net/?p=6160 Do you know the type and amount of computer memory that your computer motherboard supports out of your head? There are ways to look those information up, for example in the manual that came with the computer motherboard but what if you bought the computer fully assembled? You could open it and find out about the motherboard and look it up or use a software that tells you exactly what computer memory is supported by your computer.

The tool that does this is called Crucial System Scanner (via Shellcity) which is a tool that can give you the information for a safe computer memory upgrade. It is however deeply connected with the Crucial store which sells computer memory.

When you start the tool it opens a website in your default web browser that is showing you your computer’s specifications.

computer memory upgrade

It displays the number of RAM banks, the banks that already contain computer memory but more importantly than that the supported DRAM Types, the computer memory frequencies and the maximum that can be installed on the computer. In my case it would be DDR2 SDRAM with PC”-5300, PC2-6400 and PC2-8500 frequencies and a maximum of 8192 Megabytes of computer memory.

If the software is not able to detect the information properly you could enter the motherboard information manually to receive the same kind of information for the computer memory upgrade. Oh, and you do not have to buy from their store obviously.

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]]> http://www.ghacks.net/2008/08/14/safe-computer-memory-upgrade/feed/ 6 How to test your RAM for errors http://www.ghacks.net/2007/07/26/how-to-test-your-ram-for-errors/ http://www.ghacks.net/2007/07/26/how-to-test-your-ram-for-errors/#comments Thu, 26 Jul 2007 11:50:39 +0000 Martin http://www.ghacks.net/2007/07/26/how-to-test-your-ram-for-errors/ It you purchase new ram, a new or used computer or experience crashes and bluescreens you should definitely test the memory installed on your computer to make sure that it is running without errors. Faulty memory is one of the main reasons for instability. The first task should be to make sure that the memory is correctly inserted into the memory banks. Make sure you count the number of bars and check if you are running dual channel mode or not.

Download the free software Memtest86+ as an iso image (currently Memtest 3.3 iso) and burn it to a compact disk. Reboot your computer afterwards and boot the CD that you just created. You might need to change the boot order in your bios to be able to boot from CD. Memtest86+ is starting automatically from CD and performing in depth memory tests that could take hours to complete.

If errors are encountered during the test you know that you have faulty RAM and need to replace it. If you have more than one RAM bar installed you should test them separately to make sure you know which one is the faulty one. I ran the test just a few hours ago and realized that one of my ram bars is indeed faulty which made me order new RAM immediately.

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