Memory Diagnostic Tool

[jones911]

I have been getting the blue screen of death lately and I believe it is due to a ram problem and a bad drives. I do have an odd question though, when I run the memory diagnostic tool in Vista it tells me I have a problem, not does this tool mean the problem is in my ram or my hard drive? So for the dumb question but i would rather ask then assume, thankyou.

 

[Mondoman]

I would think RAM. Download and burn a bootable CD image of memtest86+, then boot from the CD for a basic OS-independent memory tester.

 

[GhislainG]

A memory problem can't be caused by the hard disk.

 

[skysober]

Actually main "memory problem's" are 90% of the time is caused by the hard drive. Many non-techs forget that the operating systems create swap files for ran, temp files, etc... and for example, even if you completely turn virtual memory off in windows, it still uses some 'minimal' swap files, (example photoshop is a great abuser of this,).

Often the easiest check that can be done, is to go into ones BIOS and turn off Quick boot, turn on full mem check, and/or however your bios sets up to check the memory prior to even running your operating system. If it passes this, then there is only about a 2% chance it is the actual ram.

If you note and do the math... 90% IS the hard drive, 2% is the ram... okay, the other area that is the other 8%? Your video card. Yup, it contains ram on it, and many systems actually share into that in more ways than just 'displaying video'.

Of course this is basically finite, as you could add in a lan card that is self bootable and has mem cache on it, etc... I've even viewed that to cause a memory problem once. But only the one time in over 20 years.

Good luck!

 

[GhislainG]

Swap file errors don't result in memory errors. They normally show up as disk errors and cause applications, drivers and OS crashes.