Memtest86 refuses to boot on my system

[Ilyas]

Hello, i bought a new ram stick and I wanted to have it tested by Memtest86 however after having correctly installed it on a flash disk this one refuses to boot after having correctly selected my flash disk on the bios to boot on it.

On the Memtest site it is clearly specified that the current version 10 is only compatible with UEFI Bios.

By checking my Bios type via the MSIinfo32 command, I discover that my Bios is in Legacy version and not UEFI, which explains why Memtest86 refuses to boot Visionneuse images - Noelshack - https://image.noelshack.com/fichiers/2023/10/2/1678144522-capture1.png


But normally I have UEFI Bios , I can use it with mouse and all, it looks like Visionneuse images - Noelshack - https://image.noelshack.com/fichiers/2023/10/2/1678144389-ffc80841ee221c468d6db80c58aa21803896c229.jpeg (this is not a screenshot of my system).
It is an Asus B85M-G Motherboard coupled with an i3 4130 and two 4GB ram sticks, the bios is in version 0604.

https://www.asus.com/fr/motherboards...usiness/b85mg/

Even on the manufacturer's site it is clearly specified that the bios is a UEFI.

Please, I want to use the latest version of memtest to check the health of my ram knowing that it is more complete than the old versions, thank you.

[David (PassMark)]

Second screen shot shows that the BIOS is in fact UEFI, despite the age of the machine.
So it should work.

But there might be an option in BIOS to boot either legacy mode or UEFI.

Also try a different flash drive in case the drive is bad.

Otherwise you can also collect a log file (assuming the MemTest86 boot process starts)
memtest86.com/tech_debug-logs.html

[Ilyas]

Hi, I went into the bios of the motherboard and it looks exactly like this

So I changed the bios boot settings to put the boot device control on UEFI Only.

Then after saving and quitting, it sends me directly to the bios telling me that it doesn't detect any device to boot from, neither my flash drive, nor my dvd player nor my hard disk, absolutely nothing.

So I put everything back to default and downloaded EasusPartion Master partitioning software and cheated to convert my flash drive from GPT to MBR, by default Memtest86 installer puts the flash drive in fat 16 GPT.

And miraculously, my bios manages to detect it as a UEFI bootable device and I manage to boot on it (however I don't know if this manipulation can alter the performance or the test results of Memtest86 V10.)

I therefore launch the default test which lasts 4 passes and this one does not detect any error, unlike the old versions of Memtest86 that's comes alongside with Linux Mint installer.


Here is the detailed report

I even did a benchmark

Two questions then come to me, why my UEFI BIOS can't boot the devices in GPT and why Memtest86 v5 detects an error while Memtest86 v10 does not ?


Here are the previous tests I did with Memtest86 V5
Visionneuse images - Noelshack - https://image.noelshack.com/fichiers/2023/10/2/1678227178-capture4.png
Visionneuse images - Noelshack - https://image.noelshack.com/fichiers/2023/10/2/1678227188-capture5.png

As you can see on the first screen it detects an error in 3 times in a total of 6 passes.

In the second screen it detects me the same error but this time in one time and only during pass 4.

Frankly, I don't know what to think about it.

And thank you for your answers.

[David (PassMark)]

Your screen shots are tiny thumbnails. Too small to read any of the details.

As per this page,
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/wi...iew=windows-11
"To boot your PC in UEFI mode, you'll need to use a drive formatted using the GPT drive format."

So I am guessing it is a BIOS bug, or you were in CSM mode.

The errors detected in V5 are at a very low memory address. Likely that address is hidden (or in use by) UEFI. You would need to look at the memory map to be sure.

Example memory map as displayed in Memtest86

[Ilyas]

Hello and thank you for your reply, I'm sorry, for the screenshots, this is my first time posting here so I think I'll just continue to use noelshack image hoster.

Here are my 3 previous screenshots in order :

Visionneuse images - Noelshack - https://image.noelshack.com/fichiers/2023/10/2/1678225802-capture2.png
Visionneuse images - Noelshack - https://image.noelshack.com/fichiers/2023/10/2/1678226423-capture3.png
Visionneuse images - Noelshack - https://image.noelshack.com/fichiers/2023/10/2/1678226474-mt86screen-20230307-223331.png


After reading your post and the microsoft articles, I come to the conclusion that I installed windows incorrectly, that's why it somehow turns into legacy, so I have to either reinstall it in UEFI mode or just convert my hard drive.

Honestly I didn't know that Windows could influence my bios that much.

And for the CSM mode you are talking about, yes it is activated by default on my motherboard, as you can see on the first screenshot, if that's what you were talking about because I'm not sure.

The computer world is absolutely fabulous, you just want to check something and you come across a lot of other problems lol.

I'm also trying to make a map of my ram to verify what you told me.

Thank you again because it also teaches me a lot of things.

[owhat]

Your windows doesn't have an effect on your UEFI. You might have installed Windows on a MBR drive meaning that you can't use stuff like Fastboot (since it doesn't boot in Uefi mode). But that doesn't have anything to do with Memtest, since you run memtest booting from your USB drive which was correctly formated by the tool Memtest provides.

The issue you might have is, that you'Re trying to boot Memtest with CSM instead of "Uefi" mode. So you might change your bios Setting to Uefi Mode and then boot from your USB drive.
However it is possible that with this setting enabled Windows then won't boot anymore.. so you should change that setting back to CSM after running Memtest.

[NM64]

You did not say what your exact motherboard is, but your use of an i7-4770 implies that its one with an LGA1150 socket. I myself have an Asus Z87-Pro that also uses an LGA1150 socket and it's actually quite simple to get it to boot MemTest86 if your board insists on defaulting to booting via legacy boot - and, no, Windows has nothing to do with it.

First, make sure that your BIOS is not set to "Legacy OPROM only[/i].

Then simply press the F8 key over and over when turning on the PC on the initial "Asus" post screen and before it boots into your operating system. A popup window should eventually appear showing a list of things (it might only list 2 or 3 things though) - in this list you should see an option for something that might say UEFI OS, UEFI USB, etc. What you want to do is select the UEFI option that corresponds to your USB drive (if you don't know which one, then simply do trial-and-error).

If worst comes to worst, you can always try installing Ventoy onto your USB drive and then throwing the memtest86-usb.img file onto it (or, if you're feeling daring, throwing my 17MB version of 10.2 Free onto the Ventoy disk instead so that it doesn't take up so much disk space).

There's also the possibility that you might actually need to update your motherboard's bios/firmware but, again, that's difficult for me to determine when I don't even know what your exact motherboard is (something like CPU-Z should say this in its "Motherboard" tab).