[plug] Testing RAM

[Dennis Plester]

Mike wrote:

"Just wondering if anyone could point me to any tools that I can use (under
Linux of course) for testing system RAM. I seem to have a dodgy 64M PC100
SDRAM chip and I just want to conclusively say it is a RAM problem."

While it isn't strictly "under Linux", there is a very good free program
called DocMem, which if I recall correctly was available at
www.simmtester.com <http://www.simmtester.com> . It creates a boot floppy
which you then use to boot the machine. It has a "quick" test which takes
about 3 - 5 minutes, plus a more in depth burn in mode. It does the
lightweight POST style memory test, plus it then writes a series of patterns
through to every memory address and checks that they reproduce correctly.
The boot floppy does not require windows on the machine, but the installer
needs DOS or windows to make the disk. Perhaps there is at least one windows
PC near you in West Africa...or Win4Lin? I made the boot floppy about two
years ago, and it is now part of my standard collection of rescue disks.

This program has detected dodgy RAM for me several times on different
machines, even though the BIOS POST testing has implied that the RAM was
fine. Even the "extended" BIOS testing of RAM on your more deluxe
motherboards is usually very basic, and will often pass faulty RAM.

You really need to use a specialised program such as this that runs off it's
own minimal boot image, rather than a utility under Windows and Linux,
because most of the latter are not able to do extensive pattern
reading/writing to every single available address in the memory space.
Especially while there is a full blown operating system sitting in there as
well!

I'm sure DocMem is not the only program that will do this. I'm sorry if any
of the above addresses or names are not quite correct, but I'm writing this
from my work PC, and all the details are at home.

Hope this helps.

Dennis.