Bad memory?

[Dumbguy]

Hi,

I have two 512 stick of Ultra pc3200. I've been having lockups and shutdowns lately. It's totally random. I don't think it's heat, as I've pumped a ton of air to the can. My only constant is the flickering orange "accessing" LED. The thing always flickers. And when I insert my flash drive, the LED on that flickers as well. My hard drive makes the usual accessing info noise too. The machine constantly thinks until it freezes.
Someone told me it could be bad memory. Does that sound like bad memory symptoms? Any help you can offer is really appreciated. Oh yeah, I've reinstalled XP too. It's pretty frustrating.

Thanks

 

[1Tanker]

It could be bad memory, could also be your power supply. Do you have extra

RAM to switch with, or someone who can lend you some. If not you can take

out 1 stick, try it, then switch with other stick. One more thing you can do

is download Memtest 86. Then copy it onto a floppy. Then boot from floppy,

and run the tests, if it's bad RAM, Memtest will show lots of errors.

 

[steckman]

I would try some application designed to test memory. If I go to Google and type in "memory tester", it comes up with memtest86 which I have heard good things about. There may be some newer programs that work better though.

 

[1Tanker]

Memtest 86 is widely considered the best of the best. Test 5 is

particularly tough. If your RAM makes it through several rounds, then

your good to go.

 

[Dumbguy]

Thanks, I downloaded memtest and tried it. It gave me a super quick dos box that disappeared. So, it has to be booted huh? I can set my BIOS to boot from a flash drive right? I don't have a floppy.

Thanks for your help!

 

[steckman]

It depends on your motherboard, but you probably can enable "boot from USB" in the BIOS. Of course, you need to have a bootable device. This is why I keep a USB floppy drive around.

 

[Dumbguy]

Oh yeah...Tanker, power supply? I don't suppose there's a power supply test? I built this barebones system in November, so if it's starting to die now...

 

[blue68f100]

I like Prime95 better than Mem86. You just need to adjust the parameters for your system. It allow you to stress the cpu , cpu+mem, ....

I runs from windows.

 

[blue68f100]

I like Prime95 better than Mem86. You just need to adjust the parameters for your system. It allow you to stress the cpu , cpu+mem, ....

I runs from windows.

 

[vimka]

The best way to test your PSU is to check the voltage readings in the BIOS and see if they fluctuate much, or if they are more than 5% off of their rated voltage. Also, if your motherboard has a utility to monitor the voltage, run something that will max your CPU and RAM, and watch the voltages. They should stay pretty steady if your PSU is good.

I would also check out the HDD. Most manufacturors have a utility to test the drive for errors without being destructive (i.e. no data loss). Hiren's Boot Disc has pretty much every HDD maker's utility on it, so get that if you can.

As others have suggested, Memtest86 is awesome and you should run that ASAP.

 

[Dumbguy]

I'll check for that. How about running a dvd with Photoshop open? I just need to do as much as possible at the same time to max the CPU & RAM, right?

 

[vimka]

I'll check for that. How about running a dvd with Photoshop open? I just need to do as much as possible at the same time to max the CPU & RAM, right?

http://www.winsite.com/bin/Info?12500000036338

Download the BitPro Burn-In Test and run that with all CPU and RAM settings at max, along with the 2d & 3d video. Leave the LAN and Sound out of it, though. Trust me, those two are really annoying.

There is a price listed on that site for the software, but you can get a 30-day trial for free and just use that.