memtest86 settings menu has no Show DMI Info

[peterk1]

I just downloaded the latest memtest86, but found that there is no longer a "Show DMI Memory Info" option in the settings menu. I loved that feature, as it let me find out what mem cards are in a box without taking it apart and/or trying to read labels. I see that I can boot an older memtest, 3.5 or something, which still has the feature, but why has the feature been removed? It was such an excellent feature.

[peterk1]

Is a download of v3.5 available, in case folks want that as the default boot option, since it retains the features in the settings menu that have been eliminated?

[David (PassMark)]

Older downloads are still available on the download page,
http://www.memtest86.com/download.htm

In V3.3 support for displaying RAM SPD information (which was called DMI in the menu) was included. This only ever supports a subset of motherboards. This feature was removed again in V4.0, in 2011.

The reason give by Chris, the maintainer of the project at the time, was,

All code related to controller identification, PCI and DMI has been removed. This may be a controversial decision and was not made lightly. The following are justifications for the decision:

1. Controller identification has nothing to do with actual testing of memory, the core purpose of MemTest86.
2. This code needed to be updated with every new chipset. With the ever growing number of chip-sets it is not possible to keep up with the changes. The result is that new chipsets were more often than not reported in-correctly. In the authors opinion incorrect information is worse than no information.
3. Probing for chipset information carries the risk of making the program crash.
4. The amount of code involved with controller identification was quite large, making support more difficult.

Points 2 to 4 are completely true. Writing, testing and maintaining this type of code is hard work and can reduce the overall stability of the software. For point 1 it is possible to make an argument either way. While the display of system information might not be a core function of the software it clearly will have some interest for a lot of users.

Outside of MemTest86 we have free Windows RamMon software to display the RAM SPD details. So this might help, if Windows is installed on the machine.

For MemTest86 we are going to have a go at including this function again later in the year. Maybe pulling code from RamMon and combining it with the old V3.3 code.