Tweet
Hello,
I would first like to express my gratitude for your software and hard work.
I am running a Ryzen 9 5950X-based system with an X570 chipset 128GB of RAM at 3200Mhz (two RAM kits of 2x32GB, making it 4x32GB DIMMs).
Very early into owning the system I started experiencing stability (BSODs, access violations) and data corruption issues.
I used MemTest86 v9.0 to test the RAM, and the only test that would consistently fail was the Hammering Test. All other MemTest86 tests would pass without error.
With the Hammering Test, I would first see a note stating that "RAM might be vulnerable to high frequency row hammer bit flips". Some cycles later, concrete errors would start mounting up. Oddly enough, one could see an odd address distribution there: about 50% of the errors have occurred on a single address. That address would continue to "star" in subsequent test passes, even after rebooting (which made sense, as an OS with address abstraction/randomization/virtual memory is not involved here). Additionally, these errors would all happen in the same 36MB-big memory region (around the 23.3GB mark), and all seemed to be single-bit flips, too; I could never see corruption in more than one bit at a time.
By trial-and-error, I was able to narrow this down to one of two kits of DIMMs (since I purchased two dual-module RAM kits, I would have to RMA both the offending module and its same-kit counterpart. It therefore made no difference to me which of the two modules was the culprit). Having received the replacement kit, the Hammering Test seems to pass without error. No apparent data corruption is visible, too. In my experience the possibility of Hammering Test errors manifesting themselves as real problems is very real.
I would now wish to test the reliability of my RAM, "once and for all". I am aware that using four dual-rank modules in a Ryzen-based system at 3200MHz is "pushing it".
Browsing online, I see that some people suggest to rather use Windows-based memory testing software. This is a bit counterintuitive to my software engineering mind, since operating systems usually abstract memory behind virtual memory managers, ASLR and etc. Moreover, because some memory would be occupied by an OS, an exhaustive test would not be possible.
What I would like to ask is whether there is any advantage of using Windows-based tools over MemTest86 in my scenario?
Thank you!
I would first like to express my gratitude for your software and hard work.
I am running a Ryzen 9 5950X-based system with an X570 chipset 128GB of RAM at 3200Mhz (two RAM kits of 2x32GB, making it 4x32GB DIMMs).
Very early into owning the system I started experiencing stability (BSODs, access violations) and data corruption issues.
I used MemTest86 v9.0 to test the RAM, and the only test that would consistently fail was the Hammering Test. All other MemTest86 tests would pass without error.
With the Hammering Test, I would first see a note stating that "RAM might be vulnerable to high frequency row hammer bit flips". Some cycles later, concrete errors would start mounting up. Oddly enough, one could see an odd address distribution there: about 50% of the errors have occurred on a single address. That address would continue to "star" in subsequent test passes, even after rebooting (which made sense, as an OS with address abstraction/randomization/virtual memory is not involved here). Additionally, these errors would all happen in the same 36MB-big memory region (around the 23.3GB mark), and all seemed to be single-bit flips, too; I could never see corruption in more than one bit at a time.
By trial-and-error, I was able to narrow this down to one of two kits of DIMMs (since I purchased two dual-module RAM kits, I would have to RMA both the offending module and its same-kit counterpart. It therefore made no difference to me which of the two modules was the culprit). Having received the replacement kit, the Hammering Test seems to pass without error. No apparent data corruption is visible, too. In my experience the possibility of Hammering Test errors manifesting themselves as real problems is very real.
I would now wish to test the reliability of my RAM, "once and for all". I am aware that using four dual-rank modules in a Ryzen-based system at 3200MHz is "pushing it".
Browsing online, I see that some people suggest to rather use Windows-based memory testing software. This is a bit counterintuitive to my software engineering mind, since operating systems usually abstract memory behind virtual memory managers, ASLR and etc. Moreover, because some memory would be occupied by an OS, an exhaustive test would not be possible.
What I would like to ask is whether there is any advantage of using Windows-based tools over MemTest86 in my scenario?
Thank you!
Comment