Prime95 effective for RAM testing? (memory related crashes)

[doomsdaydave11]

Hello, I've been getting memory errors up the yin yang. Errors similar to the dreaded
"The instruction at "0x000000000" referenced memory at "0x00000000". The memory could not be "read". Click OK to terminate program." error. When I try to delete files, I get crashes. Sometimes when I right click on something, explorer crashes. I have been getting Dr. Watson Post Mortem Debugger errors (which I've never seen before), until I turned it off. I have not been getting system shutoff or restarts- yet. Or any hangs for that manner. I have run Ad-Aware, AVG 8.0, CCleaner, and have used Hijack this. There isn't a virus on my system it would seem. Right now I am running the Blend Test (the most RAM intensive one) under Prime95, and haven't had any errors. I will run Memtest86+ overnight tonight (is that safe?), but I'm wondering if Prime95 is an effective RAM test?

 

[chookman]

Memtest is much better for ram only , prime95 will do some ram and cpu.

 

[orangegator]

Use Memtest86+

 

[Mondoman]

Yes, PRIME95 is usually a more stringent test than is memtest86+. However, you should do both. It sounds like your OS may have been corrupted, so I'd do a fresh install.