Needed desperately - memroy test prog that works.

[Tony Roe]

Hi

My P4-2.6, 800MHz FSB, Intel D875 mobo, 512MB ECC RAM and Win2k, but sometimes
when I silens\ce a range of audio samples in Cool Edit Pro 2.1, some of the
samples end up with weird values (and therefore make weird noises). When that
happens I can usually close it down OK except that I get the "program has
performed an illegal operation" message. This was happening maybe once a month,
but several times yesterday. I may have had a few other isolated problems, but
nothing like this. I re-installed Cool Edit, but no change (Cool Edit runs fine
on my old P3-866 PC, and on other peoples' P4 PCs).

So I downloaded Memtest86 and DocMemory 2.1, then in turn created the boot
floppies, booted from them, then started the test. In both cases the PC hung up
immediately the test started (sometimes it might get through a few % of a test,
but then no response at all from keyboard or mouse).

These progs are supposed to be used to diagnose systems in bad shape, whereas my
system runs 100% reliably nearly all the time, so I find it hard to believe that
my system could be in such bad shape that a diagnostic utility won't run. Maybe
these utilities or Cool Edit don't work on the 875 chipset? Can anyone offer me
any clues?

Tony (remove the "_" to reply by email)

 

[tomcas]

Here's another memory tester.
http://oca.microsoft.com/en/windiag.asp#top

 

[larrymoencurly]

So I downloaded Memtest86 and DocMemory 2.1, then in turn
created the boot floppies, booted from them, then started the
test. In both cases the PC hung up immediately the test started
(sometimes it might get through a few % of a test, but then
no response at all from keyboard or mouse).

These progs are supposed to be used to diagnose systems in bad
shape, whereas my system runs 100% reliably nearly all the time,
so I find it hard to believe that my system could be in such bad
shape that a diagnostic utility won't run.

I've found that if DocMemory finds errors, then the memory is in
really, really bad shape because it's often passed memory that
MemTest86 and Gold Memory (www.goldmemory.cz) thought had tons of
errors in it. In the past I thought that Gold Memory was good enough
to find every defect (got a really good review at
www.realworldtech.com) because it found every error that MemTest86
did, but with my most recent Kingston module it found no errors while
MemTest86 found a few every time it ran (three bad Kingston PC2100
256MB modules in a row, bought a few months apart each).

 

[Frank Fussenegger]

Tony, get the latest BIOS from the Intel web site. I think they made
some changes so that Memtest86 would work with that MB.

 

[William W. Plummer]

Search for "WinDiag". Download and run it to make either a bootable floppy
or CD-ROM.

 

[Tony Roe]

Thank you all who replied with useful tips (tomcas, larrymoencurly, Frank and
William). I found WinDiag and GoldMem, and got the latest Intel bios, plus the
latest Matrox video drivers (while I was in update mode). Although DocMem and
GoldMem still seize up as soon as the test starts, WinDiag and MemTest86 now run
fully (but find no errors), and so far all apps run without issue (that's not
definitive, as I would sometimes run for a week or more without an issue before
I started all this).

So my synopsis is that the memory is OK and the 875 chipset bios changes have
improved things a lot, so I'll just keep doing what I did before, then if I do
get any more issues I'll return to the Intel site to see if there's yet another
bios version (they've been thick and fast so far, so I'm guessing they will
continue to bring out new versions regularly).

Hi

My P4-2.6, 800MHz FSB, Intel D875 mobo, 512MB ECC RAM and Win2k, but sometimes
when I silens\ce a range of audio samples in Cool Edit Pro 2.1, some of the
samples end up with weird values (and therefore make weird noises). When that
happens I can usually close it down OK except that I get the "program has
performed an illegal operation" message. This was happening maybe once a month,
but several times yesterday. I may have had a few other isolated problems, but
nothing like this. I re-installed Cool Edit, but no change (Cool Edit runs fine
on my old P3-866 PC, and on other peoples' P4 PCs).

So I downloaded Memtest86 and DocMemory 2.1, then in turn created the boot
floppies, booted from them, then started the test. In both cases the PC hung up
immediately the test started (sometimes it might get through a few % of a test,
but then no response at all from keyboard or mouse).

These progs are supposed to be used to diagnose systems in bad shape, whereas my
system runs 100% reliably nearly all the time, so I find it hard to believe that
my system could be in such bad shape that a diagnostic utility won't run. Maybe
these utilities or Cool Edit don't work on the 875 chipset? Can anyone offer me
any clues?

Tony (remove the "_" to reply by email)

Tony (remove the "_" to reply by email)