Hci Memtest Vs Memtest86

[Arleen Smelko]

IfI encounter a situation where I suspect my machine's RAM might be going bad, I might need to launch memtest86+ to check it. How can I do this using Ubuntu? Are there different methods for launching it whether Ubuntu is already installed?

As you can see there are some options to choose from (this will vary from installation to insatllation), the one to look for is the third option in this screenshot i.e. Memory test (memtest86+), which will be there in the grub menu along with other options.

Here is an image (taken from here) showing that errors were encountered i.e. the test is failing in some memory locations (pointed out in the red portion) indicating the locations might have problems. If your memory does not have any problem then you won't get any red portion.

To use Ubuntu live USB for starting memtest86+ you might have to change boot order in BIOS or press some system specific (function) key to display one time boot menu and then (at least with Ubuntu 22.04 live media) choose legacy boot (not UEFI) for the USB media. Then there is Memtest in the Grub menu. Maybe with the latest Ubuntu release it is different and you can run memtest even if you use UEFI boot for the media since memtest86+ version 6 has UEFI support.

Looking for similar filenames on my system I find only files with quite old dates which is telling me they may have nothing to do with the recent installation of memtest86+ but may be leftovers from something in the past:

MemTest86 and Memtest86+ are memory test software programs designed to test and stress test an x86 architecture computer's random-access memory (RAM) for errors, by writing test patterns to most memory addresses, reading back the data, and comparing for errors. Each tries to verify that the RAM will accept and correctly retain arbitrary patterns of data written to it, that there are no errors where different bits of memory interact, and that there are no conflicts between memory addresses. MemTe...

You are spot on, I actually managed to interrupt the auto-start of the test and navigate to settings and manually change the resolution. Once changed to either 1920x1080 or the native 2256x1504, the test screen now displays it properly.

PassMark suggests that this is a firmware issue, and further recommends purchasing the configurable version of memtest86+ to remediate it. If it really is a firmware issue, it may be worth pursuing a fix on the Framework side.

@mbod

many tools still put their bootloader-relevant stuff in /boot because that is where all the grub configs look for them. For memtest it could be changed in packaging by modifying the line you quoted but not sure when or if that will happen.

The best way to mitigate that is to mount your esp partition to /boot so that the default for grub also works for systemd-boot.

Personally, I also use /boot/efi for esp due to historical reasons and just copy stuff around after an update - but my next installs will definitely have their esp at /boot - maybe I will even migrate my existing installs at some point if it annoys me enough.

Thanks a lot, that worked nicely! Simply copying the images to the Ventoy drive was enough. I tried both the propietary (memtest86) and the FOSS (memtest86+) version successfully. For the FOSS version, I downloaded the ISO from the project homepage.

Normally the CPU is not what determines supported memory speed. That is usually controlled by the mobo and bios firmware. My CPU is a ryzen 5 3600 on a B550M Pro mobo and the mobo supports the 3600 RAM.

The memory speed should match the infinity fabric speed, anything else will have significant performance impact. Since memory is DDR (double data rate) you want to divide the memory speed by 2 to match the infinity fabric. So for 3200 your infinity fabric speed needs to be able to reach 1600.

Underclocking memory is generally fine and you could spend hours cranking down the timings but as you pointed out, the slower speed memory is cheaper, so it just depends on where you want to spend time/$$$.

Most of the better motherboards have a bios that is able to set memory and CPU timing factors as well as adjusting voltages for both memory and CPU. Adjusting the memory settings is usually in the same area as adjusting values for the CPU.

Since running at those settings failed , i had it reverting back to the Default settings , as in turning off the XMP profile , so my RAM was only running at 1333mhz , which too still failed the MemTest86...

2)For the " Legacy USB " i see there is 2 , one is Legacy USB and another is Legacy USB 3.0 , so i just Disable the main one Legacy USB , that should work right since i did that i can no longer see the one for 3.0

About using MemTest86 , i had it burn onto a Disc , so i just had to throw it in , and boot up via my DVD Room then MemTest86 will run , that's all i have to do right ? Do i need to do any other settings and such in the MemTest86 ?

So ok nvm , i thought i give a try on Slot 4 just in case maybe Slot 4 have problems too , i used the first stick ( the good one ) on Slot 4 , passed flawlessly till a rainbow came into my house :eek: :p:

Memory can fail in a myriad of ways. It could be just one bit on one chip on the stick. Enough to throw errors in memtest, but not enough (or not in the right location for dumb luck to create instant BSODs).

If you keep going by youtube videos your never going to buy another product in your life. Corsair sells upwards of 100,000 PSU's a MONTH. So yes your going to see issues here and there and some more so than with others. So even if you took ALL the complaints or issues you could find and put them together compared to the amount sold the percentage of affected units is quite small. Most users do not have any issues at all.

I'm installing FreeDOS by floppy and CD now, and so far there has been no issues. It also boots FreeDOS from floppy disk without issues. This makes me believe that this issue with memtest86 is not related to an actual hardware problem but probably an old mainboard with some quirks and maybe a BIOS with some bugs.

There's a DOS version of Memtest86+, too. If you're able to boot into DOS, you could try running the exe from there.

It's no longer available for the latest version, but older versions are still online: (get the "Pre-Compiled EXE file")

I expect you guys know that 4.20 introduces "failsafe mode", but also there was at least one version of 4.20 that was buggy. The one that shipped with Ubuntu 12.10 LiveISO was false-positive happy. I don't know how it was limited to that release of 4.20, or if it actually extended further.

While ago, I had an customer with notebook that would boot and go BSOD, thinking either bad hard drive or software. I knew better and got memtest86+ on usb and booted with which promptly detected one bad memory module out of two and replaced it with exact match when special order came in. Fixed perfectly.

After reading through the change logs...

I don't think any past v2.11 add anything new that would help with pre-DDR2 vintage equipment's.

v4.00 and up seem to only add things for DDR2 equipment and newer so for retro I don't see any benefit in using 4.10 over 4.00.

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Detecting the type of memory depends on the chipset. Reading chipset configuration is a feature memtest got around Pentium III time, if I remember correctly, so around 2000. No one cared about implementing getting configuration from old 486 chipsets at that time, so the feature is just not implemented. One reason for this is that for many chipsets of that time, datasheets are publicly not available, although IIRC your LS board uses a SiS 496/497 chipset which has a publicly available datasheet.

The cache size is determined by doing timing measurement, I think. memtest doesn't implement any classic timing methods, but relies on the cycle counter (time stamp counter) that is only provided from Pentium onwards, so you won't get cache size and performance data on 486 class computers.

Pretty old topic but let's pull it up. Does anybody have a working floppy image that can test the ram on my FIC PIO-2 with a dx4 which they can provide? So far I did not find any working memtest. ctramtest complains that it cannot detect my host bridge and exits, memtest86 just reboots and memtest86+ in either 4.0 or 2.x are iso's only and too large to convert them to a floppy image.

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