Computer restarts during memtest

[arctother]

Hello, I tried running memtest on an HP Elite 8300 and the computer restarted without finishing. No results were given, the test just started over after the timeout.What might be causing this behavior?

[David (PassMark)]

If you are running from a USB drive, then there will be a debug log on the drive (MemTest86.log).
Check the firmware it up to date. But it is most likely a hardware fault.

[arctother]

I ran it from a cd, but I can try again with USB and see if there is a log. What kind of hardware fault is likely to cause this?

[arctother]

Hi, I ran the test again from a usb, and it restarted again during the second pass. I have the log, is there any way to tell from the log what the problem might be?

[David (PassMark)]

If the log contains memory errors, then likely the RAM is bad.

Otherwise it could be a number of different things. e.g. bad power supply, bad motherboard, bad CPU.
Is the machine stable running Windows?

Sudden shutdowns are hard to diagnose.

[arctother]

The machine (running linux) was already shutting down unexpectedly, particularly when using lots of resources (a 3d game for instance), which is why I was checking the memory for issues.

[David (PassMark)]

100% sure it is hardware issue then.
Start by swapping power supply and see if stability improves.

[arctother]

Thanks for the advice.