RAM R/W failure...(solved)

Triple B

So I turned on my PC tonight and got the following POST beep sequence:

beep...beep,beep,beep

And at the bottom of the screen it said "RAM R/W FAILURE", and it showed that it was only reading 635MB of RAM. I rebooted from the login screen and the same thing happened. Then I logged in and let the computer boot up fully. I checked the system properties, and the entire gig is detected. Why would I get a RAM failure at POST, but then have all my RAM in Windows?

Janin

Memtest86, use it. Burn it to a CD and let it run for one full pass, or one hour (whatever comes first). Depending on how many errors it gives you, it'll be a good idea to buy replacement RAM before everything becomes corrupted.

If you have multiple sticks, use memtest to see which ones are good (if any).

EDIT: fixed link, sorry about that

DrFrylock

This can also occur due to a bad motherboard (or bad RAM slot on the motherboard), so if you find that one module seems to be failing, try swapping slots to make sure it's the RAM module and not the slot it's in.

Triple B

jmillikin wrote: »

Memtest86, use it. Burn it to a CD and let it run for one full pass, or one hour (whatever comes first). Depending on how many errors it gives you, it'll be a good idea to buy replacement RAM before everything becomes corrupted.

If you have multiple sticks, use memtest to see which ones are good (if any).

How do I burn it to a CD? Do I have to buy it or can I use the free version? I don't have any floppy disks, so...

3lwap0

memtest is free, just google it and burn it. It's been mentioned, but it takes a bit to run sometimes.

Edit: How do you burn a CD? Do you mean you've never actually used a CD-ROM RW to create a CD before?

stigweard

This is the correct link. Memtest86 has a higher version number but it is older.

JLM-AWP

DrFrylock wrote: »

This can also occur due to a bad motherboard (or bad RAM slot on the motherboard), so if you find that one module seems to be failing, try swapping slots to make sure it's the RAM module and not the slot it's in.

This would have been my first step. Also, have you been tampering with the RAM lately? You may have a couple loose or missing "teeth" on the ram, maybe causing intermittent connection issues? My friend often fixed this with tinfoil, believe it or not.

Triple B

3lwap0 wrote: »

memtest is free, just google it and burn it. It's been mentioned, but it takes a bit to run sometimes.

Edit: How do you burn a CD? Do you mean you've never actually used a CD-ROM RW to create a CD before?

...Of course I've used a CD-RW before. Memtest just...doesn't seem like the kind of thing that will be useful when burned to a CD-R. All signs point to me needing to put it on a floppy to have it work properly, and I don't have a floppy around. I mean, unless I'm reading it wrong. Do I just burn the entire folder to a CD-R, and then boot up with it in my drive?

JLM-AWP wrote: »

DrFrylock wrote: »

This can also occur due to a bad motherboard (or bad RAM slot on the motherboard), so if you find that one module seems to be failing, try swapping slots to make sure it's the RAM module and not the slot it's in.

This would have been my first step. Also, have you been tampering with the RAM lately? You may have a couple loose or missing "teeth" on the ram, maybe causing intermittent connection issues? My friend often fixed this with tinfoil, believe it or not.

I haven't been tampering with anything at all. In fact, I've booted up about six times since I posted this thread, and the error has not happened again. I'm wondering if it was just a random incident.

Edit: I see. The link stigweard provided actually gave me an .iso file. The previously provided link did not. Hat's off to you, stiggy.

Janin

Am I the only one who sees free ISO images available on the .com site? I'm not sure why you would have downloaded a folder from it.

Triple B

I don't know. Maybe I just didn't look hard enough initially. Anyway, I ran about 1 1/2 passes, and got 0 errors, so I guess it was an isolated incident after all. I appreciate everyone's help.