Bad RAM

Nakatomi2010

Hey,

Figured this may be the optimum place for this. My workstation has been bluescreening on me randomly, and the errors have been presenting themselves to me as basically being bad RAM. I've also more or less confirmed this by booting the system into the Windows memory diagnostic tool and Memtest x86. The problem however is that I can't narrow down which of the 4 sticks is bad. I know, I know "Dude, just rotate through each stick".

I tried that. Each stick passes the test on its own, and in all four slots. Its like the RAM has to be used for X period of time without the workstation to shut off before it starts to fail. Very aggrevating.

So, how can I properly test all 4 sticks of RAM, at the same time, but determine which slot is bad? I got a copy of PC-Doctor kicking around from my Circuit City days, if I can dig that up I'm going to use it, but otherwise I'm drawing an odd blank...

corky842

If you leave memtest x86 alone it will just keep testing it, so just leave it alone for a couple hours with a single stick and see what happens.

Muriden

I don't have any technical advise. I just wanted to add, goddamn does that sound like a pain in the ass. My condolences.

Kuroi Ookami

Yeah, I recall having to let memtest run for some time for each stick. I'd get one going, then go play a game, watch a movie, come back a while later and see what was going on. Slap in next stick and repeat.

Nakatomi2010

Turns out the PC Doctorwas quite efficient at telling me which stick was bad in a short amount of time. Took about 2 hours total to narrow down, and confirm which stick is bad. Submitted a claim to Crucial for replacement RAM under the lifetime warranty. Unfortunately as the RAM is three years old Curcial no longer manufactures the BallistiX 1GB sticks I bought. They offered me a 2GB replacement which lower voltages which would mess up my dual channel and such. But, because I got the sticks all at the same time, they're actually going to replace all 4 sticks. So I'm going from 4GB of RAM to 8GB due to a single bad stick.

I love warranties.