Memtest86 a poor indicator of memory stability?

Soldato
Joined
2 Dec 2005
Posts
5,515
Location
Herts
Hi all,

Opty 148, 2x512 kingston value ram, dfi lanparty expert
I was just playing with the crappy ram mentioned above. With the htt at 255, I thought I'd see if it was stable at a 9/10 divider (yeh I know, unlikely conisdering its value pc3200). Anyway, booted memtest86 from cd and left it for an hour with no errors. Loaded up windows and it wasnt stable (flickering screen, failed superpi and p95 etc). Tried looser timings and more volts, memtest still thought it was stable but windows clearly wasnt.

Wierd that memtest, which is meant to be a reliable indicator of stability didnt detect any errors. Any thoughts?
 
Associate
Joined
4 Oct 2003
Posts
282
Location
UK
aiii MemTest86+ iseven used by the pro's (Crucial Labs etc). The obvious solution is to keep overclock (memory) and drop CPU multi to have it at stock speeds, see what happens then.
 
Associate
Joined
14 Jan 2004
Posts
453
Memtest is a reasnoable tester but it is no substitute for prime etc. I still use it every time I overclock because by passing memtest it is highly unlikely you will corrupt your OS etc. But passing memtest is no guarentee that your RAM is stable, only the use of a variety of torture tests (p95 blend etc) can do that.
 
Associate
Joined
4 Oct 2003
Posts
282
Location
UK
Agree, no-one torture testing app can be used to test for 100% stability. A mixture of memtest, prime95, superpi, 3dmarks, sandra etc are usually the most commonly used.
 
Associate
Joined
3 Dec 2005
Posts
986
Location
UK
Memtets needs to be run for a good few hours on test 5 or 8 then ill only consider it ok.,

Ive even had it pass around 20 times then fail. A few hrs at least IMO. ;)
 
Associate
Joined
3 Dec 2005
Posts
986
Location
UK
Oh yeah i agree that memtest isnt the final ok for stability as i can pass memtest yet still fail prime.

The same with Super PI 32Mb i can pass that with my CPU yet still fail prime in seconds. I use them all and test with each and have Prime 12Hr+ as my final OC.

Memtest is fine to get a idea before running windows and risk corruption.
 
Soldato
Joined
11 Sep 2003
Posts
14,716
Location
London
4Qman said:
Oh yeah i agree that memtest isnt the final ok for stability as i can pass memtest yet still fail prime.
I can fail Memtest and pass Prime95 *blend* :)

Will have to check out this S&M though, gimme a link pls Google is giving me whips and stuff :p
 
Soldato
OP
Joined
2 Dec 2005
Posts
5,515
Location
Herts
Isteresting guys, thanks
smids said:
It can be. Depends on the strength of the controller but usually a bit more vcore sorts it.
Btw, what is a sensible vcore for a 148 with storm waterblock and 120.2? I thought about 1.6 was the max for good water
 
Back
Top Bottom