How do I know if my memory is bad?

gammonGo

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I have written a small and not super memory hogging application in a program called Matlab. I used to be able to run it. Even this morning. But this afternoon, it would not run, and issued the warning "Out of memory".

I tried running it again with all other applications closed and it still failed. Then I tried restarting Windows and running it with no other applications (save those that run at startup) open, and it still failed.

Does this indicate that my memory chips have gone bad? How can I tell?

I'm using a Lenovo W700-2757 and Windows Vista x64. Thanks.
 

gammonGo

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Well, I have 4GB (installed physical) memory. I just found the System Information utility. It says that I have the 4GB Installed Physical Memory, and 2.14 Available Physical memory. So I'm guessing my memory (among other things) is bad.
 

Legohouse

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Hello,:hello:

No, your memory is fine. If the memory was bad then most likely your laptop will not boot in the first place. I suppose this is related to virtual memory.

Try these articles either one or two of this articles may help you resolve the issue:
http://www.mathworks.in/help/matlab/matlab_prog/resolving-out-of-memory-errors.html
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/126962

In the hindsight, your laptop supports a max memory of 8GB. It has 2 slots and max per slot it takes is 4GB. If you are contemplating on adding some memory then you might wanna try any of these sites Memorystock.com or Kingston.com

Good luck!! Let us know how it turns out. :)


 

gammonGo

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Thanks, Leg. The mathworks articles (which I've seen in the past) are about how to program to optimize memory. Since this application worked this morning, but isn't working this evening, those don't apply. The MS KB article looks interesting, but is not for my version of Windows (Vista Ultimate x64). In the correct document, my system already has the maximum value allowed for the Registry keys they discuss. So unfortunately I'm still stuck.

If my memory is good, what's going wrong? Any more ideas anyone?
 

Legohouse

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Make sure you have enough storage space (Hard disk) say around 100MB-500MB. Maybe there is a memory leak. Also try running a memory test using Windows Memory diagnostic and memtest86(click on them for more details). If you still encounter then maybe you can upgrade the memory and see.
 

gammonGo

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The problem turns out to be a teensy, tiny little change in an underlying routine that my program uses. As a result, my program went from a 1000 by 32 matrix output to an (approximately) 469,000 by 32 matrix. My computer actually was able to handle that. It only blew up when I tried to multiply that matrix times it's transpose (don't worry if you don't know what that means - if it sounds to you like it requires a lot of memory, then you too have found the issue :) ).

I've had so many hardware issues with this old computer, I thought there was a good chance it was actually a memory problem. Now I know better.
 

Legohouse

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Well, as far as I understand it has to do with Video memory. Actually, there is a lot of errors with windows vista 64bit version and I have noticed that they have a released a patch to fix the video error. You can check the following links:
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/76484-Microsoft-Releases-Fix-for-Vista-Out-of-Memory-Error
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/940105 (at the end of the page you can find the patch, the article is based on gaming but I'm not sure if this will work.) Probably it is due virtual memory being low. Try increasing the virtual memory manual. Set the value maybe 1.5 times the amount of memory.