Question about results over 170,000 errors

[mflaschenriem]

I have been getting various BSODs for over a week now. I ran the test and it showed over 170000 errors. Could my issue be anything other than my ram?

[David (PassMark)]

It is pretty much 100% sure there is a hardware fault. Very likely it is a RAM fault. But there is also a smaller chance it is motherboard or CPU (or overheating caused by dust, lack of cooling, etc).

Try testing one stick at a time.

[snipun]

I am testing mine right now and have well over 500,000 errors. If I have for memory chips that I need to test one by one one but take me about 16 hours of testing? Or will this be able to tell me which of the memory chips is bad? I recently got a new video card but only within the past three days and I had somewhere close to 20 blue screen of death occurrences.

[David (PassMark)]

Even 1 error is bad enough that you should consider replacing the RAM.

So you don't need to wait 16 hours to get 500,000+ errors before deciding there is a problem.

As soon as you get the first error, move on to testing the next RAM stick.

[snipun]

Understood. I have two sets of 4GBx3 memory sticks. I first tried running it with all of them and hit that 500k errors with about 20% done with the first pass.

I then tried it in pairs as you suggested elsewhere in the forums. Is that ok considering they're 4GBx3 sticks?
Made it 100% through the first pair then started on the second pair.
Made it about 10% through the second pair then started on the third pair.
I hit immediate issues with the third pair. Rather than trying to figure out which individual memory stick it is of the pair, I just stopped and put the first two pairs in and am now working along the assumption I didn't need to finish the second pair (a bit risky maybe?). So of the 6 4GBx3 sticks I have 4 of them in the computer. Any issues that you think I should be cognizant of?

BTW, thanks for your help. I am donating as a result of the tool and your help. Is this the same outfit as this? http://www.memtest.org/#donation

[David (PassMark)]

No, that memtest.org is not us. It is another web site done by a different dude. He used the same name, so now everyone is confused.

We aren't taking donations. Not because we don't want / need the money, but just because it really doesn't bring in much income.

If you have found a set of 3 that work, then it sounds like the problem is solved.

[snipun]

Odd...the RAM says it's x3 but I have 4 sticks in there and it's giving me the total ram of 4 sticks. Also odd, I downloaded the other website's usb-stick enabled program and did the analysis from this. Yeah, I'm confused as hell now. Are they the same or similar programs?

[David (PassMark)]

MemTest86 is the original software. But because it is open source, people can make their own releases of it. Like what is done for Linux. The polite thing to do is to give your modified version a new name however. This didn't happen with MemTest86+. There is the plus on the end of the name, but still, nearly everyone we talk to is confused by it.

[snipun]

The fact that memtest86.com and passmark.com are two different domains kind of adds to the confusion (IMO). Now there's 3 websites with 2 dift companies? Sorry!