Memory errors displayed during memtest86 that are always 4 bytes off

[Nataliswolf]

I have used memtest for a number of years but I'm having trouble diagnosing the results of the test on this machine. I'm not sure what to make of it.

The machine has been getting BSOD for the last few months. Prior to my troubleshooting another tech had the RAM replaced with new RAM under warranty.

The machine was consistently getting failures in test 6 and test 9 so I updated the bios which seemed to correct the issues in test 6 (this may be a red herring) but test 9 is still generating errors. I tried reseating the RAM and switching Slots.

What is making me unsure of the errors is the actual and the expected are always 4 bytes off. I have added a screen capture from the report displaying the errors.

I don't know what to make of these results? I am used to faulty RAM displaying hundreds of errors and the RAM was just replaced so that makes me more hesitate to believe it. Maybe the board is bad? or an unpatched issue with the BIOS?

[David (PassMark)]

What is making me unsure of the errors is the actual and the expected are always 4 bytes off

No, that it the wrong way to read the results. The expected and actual values are hexadecimal numbers.

So the value, 0400000 in Hex is actually this binary value.
000001100001101010000000
The value 04000004 in Hex is actually this binary value.
000001100001101010000100

You can use the Windows calculator to do the conversion when in Programmer mode.

If you look at the binary pattern you will see that there is in fact only a 1 bit difference. Which is a characteristic of the most common RAM error.

But it is strange that you were seeing errors and then replaced the RAM and are still seeing errors. Maybe you got really unlucky. Or maybe you need to manually adjust the RAM timings and voltages in BIOS. I would still be tempted to swap the RAM for a 3rd set, just to see if the error disappeared.

[Nataliswolf]

Thank you. I just realized I was looking at the DEC value and not the Binary Value like a total twit..This week has been too long.

Alright. I'm going to verify the RAM is good in another machine that I have handy and then do a swap out. After I swap I'll run another test to see if Bios settings are coming into play.