On 2006.06.07, at 2:42 PM, Breen Ouellette wrote:
Did you actually read and then understand my original post?
Yes. I replied because I just wanted to clarify that memtest86 can be used to identify bad memory down to a stick, through the use of it and a thorough testing process.
Telling someone new to memtest86 that it detects bad memory sticks is misleading and could give them a nice headache if their problem is not the stick.
If they read the "Troubleshooting Memory Errors" info for memtest86, linked to from the old site and the new site, they'll see that to isolate the defective stick, they can remove, rotate or replace modules to see what device the error follows.
Like anything, memtest86 is a tool which can be used well or misused. It is up to the user to put the required effort into getting the most of it. Memtest86 can be used to detect bad memory sticks. It just does not isolate to a stick on it's own. It should be obvious to anyone, that some sort of elimination process will be required, once they have run it once.
You seem to think that I disagree with you? I am merely clarifying my point of view which seems to be the same as yours.
I can think of a situation which could be quite interesting to isolate a stick. Old BX motherboards with 4 SDRAM slots. Many could not power all 4 modules if they were particularly power hungry modules. Those motherboards typically supported memory modules without built in buffering (buffering in the electronic sense to keep digital states within required tolerances) and if the chipset was close to the maximum power it could deliver to the RAM, then errors would be all over the place and mostly non-repeatable. Rotating or replacing modules would thus be pointless. Worse still, removing modules might give the incorrect impression of finding a faulty module, when in fact it was a power delivery problem and removing *any* of the modules would have the same effect.
Shane
