Memtest Pausing ...

[Mercury]

Hello!

I have just recently installed Memtest86 and I have come across a rather annoying issue. The tests continue to pause after only a few seconds of running. Every couple of percent changes, the test stops and I have to press any key on the keyboard to have it continue. I don't see any messages showing when it pauses and none of the "Errors Found" numbers are changing or anything. Is there some sort of option that I might have accidentally enabled or an option that might discontinue this?

Thanks all!

Merc

[David (PassMark)]

Which version are you running?

Was the package you are using from the memtest86.com site, or might you have compiled your own built?

Which test number do you see this in?

Were there any errors encountered before this behaviour started, as there is an option to pause the display of errors, but it should be obvious when this happens?

There is also the "Enable boot trace" option in the configuration window. But if this is on, it should be really obvious a well, as you should get a number of cryptic messages displayed on the screen.

[Mercury]

Which version are you running?

Was the package you are using from the memtest86.com site, or might you have compiled your own built?

Which test number do you see this in?

Were there any errors encountered before this behaviour started, as there is an option to pause the display of errors, but it should be obvious when this happens?

There is also the "Enable boot trace" option in the configuration window. But if this is on, it should be really obvious a well, as you should get a number of cryptic messages displayed on the screen.

Hello!

Thank you for your response and attempting to assist me with this issue!

Which version are you running?

Version 4.2

Was the package you are using from the memtest86.com site, or might you have compiled your own built?

I downloaded it from the memtest86.com website.

Which test number do you see this in?

This begins in Test #4 and continues on afterwards.

Were there any errors encountered before this behaviour started, as there is an option to pause the display of errors, but it should be obvious when this happens?

No errors or any messages of any kind displayed. It is really odd, the first three tests continue on smoothly without any needed input from me, but then at 60% within test 4, I have to press any key on the keyboard to have it continue. Then it will continue acting this way every 5 - 10% changes.

There is also the "Enable boot trace" option in the configuration window. But if this is on, it should be really obvious a well, as you should get a number of cryptic messages displayed on the screen.

I did look within the configuration window and noticed that option and ensured that it was not active.

[Mercury]

Well ... apparently there was something wrong with my RAM which was causing this issue.

After several attempts at getting past this issue I was having, suddenly, my PC was no longer booting properly. I couldn't even get my display to come up consistently. After spending several hours of troubleshooting (including re-seating my 4 sticks of RAM, re-seating the CPU checking the voltages on my PSU and etc.,.) I attempted a more thorough cleaning of each RAM module. After doing that last attempt, the PC booted up and is running better than I have ever witnessed before lol.

... and Memtest86 now does the tests without any issues. My many thanks and apologies for wasting your time, David.

[ryoken]

The tests continue to pause after only a few seconds of running

I had a similar issue - the tests ran extremely slowly. After a bit more digging, I discovered that these were caused by ECC errors (though it didn't appear as errors in Memtest86). I suspect the memory controller was so busy trying to correct the single-bit memory errors that it slowed down Memtest86.

The ECC errors were logged in the BIOS and corresponded with the times I ran Memtest86.

[RiverGrey]

I'm having this issue of pausing every few seconds. I found this thread but still can't figure out how to speed it up. What are ECC errors?

[keith]

I'm having this issue of pausing every few seconds. I found this thread but still can't figure out how to speed it up. What are ECC errors?

If you have a system that supports ECC (error checking & correction) memory, it can automatically correct memory errors in hardware so that your system can continue running normally. The pausing described in earlier posts is due to the additional handling of the ECC errors performed by the BIOS (eg. logging to a file).