Memtest86 errors

[Norman]

Hi, I've been having a problem which at first I put down to graphics driver.

What was happening was that with Windows 7 the display driver would stop and Windows 7 would recover. The is on an Asrock Z68 pro 3 MB, i5 cpu and 16 gig Corsair Vengance 1600 DDR3 (4x4gig matched set).

Reloading OS, fitting a new C: drive, fitting a new Asus graphics card (instead of onboard graphics) all failed to fit it although it started to give BSoD with the graphics card installed).

Updated to Windows 10 and it runs fine except that every so often the computer locks up and has to be powered down (with or without graphics card).

Decided to run Memtest86 (bios mode) which reported a few memory errors.

Trying to identify the faulty module I have tested with only 2 modules and swapped them to test various combinations of the modules. No errors reported yet.

In the process of running V6 in UEFI and have relocated the memory to the WHITE slots, as yet no errors.

As this fault is intermittent and occurs after computer has been on for a couple of hours or so and can freeze several times in one session, should I bite the bullet and buy 2x8gig modules an try them or continur to run memtest86 V6 with all combinations of modules in the WHITE slots then repeat using the BLUE slots?

Thanks in advance, Norman

[David (PassMark)]

The answer depends a bit if you have more money than time, or more time than money.

Or you might decide that the machine runs just fine with only 8GB and then live with only having 8GB installed.

Also make sure your BIOS is up to date. We had a case last week when a BIOS update to a ASRock motherboard fixed RAM errors. We assume by changing the default timings.

[Norman]

At the moment I have neither money or time. lol

I do need the computer asap as this has been going on for a while & things have been left in case of data loss.

I have been looking at the BIOS update option but not having done it before I need to find out exactly how to do it so nothing goes wrong.

[Norman]

Forgot to say, this problem seems to only happen in 64 bit OS. I loaded the 32 bit version of Windows 7 and didn't have the problem in over 10 days. Within 2 days of putting the 64 bit version back on it restarted.

Does that help?

[David (PassMark)]

In 32bit most of your RAM won't be used. You can only use 4GB in total (and 2GB for any application) in 32bit. So it isn't a great solution.

Running 64bit with a working 8GB set is a better option if you neither have the time nor money to sort it out.

[Norman]

I've ran the full test on one pair with no errors, swapped with the second pair and it reported 1 fault and froze shortly after. I ran it with one from each pair with no errors. It is now running with the 2nd module from the pair that returned the error.

In the meantime I did some searching on the Asrock Z68 pro3 mobo trying several different search terms.

I came upon a forum the suggests there is a problem will this mobo (dating back to 2011, possibly about the time I got mine.

The original fault of Windows 7 reporting the graphics driver has stopped and Windows has recovered seems to be a common theme.

No one has been able to resolve it other than replacing the mobo even after a bios update.

I wasn't able to find out if the fault changed (as mine did) with the upgrade to Windows 10 so a bit more research is needed.

I am thinking that this memory is ok and the errors reported are false positives caused by a graphics glitch. My next option is to run with only 8gig, do further research and if I come to the conclusion a mobo may be the solution then try a bios update first, that way if I 'mess up' I would already be sure a mobo was needed.


Thanks for your assistance.

[David (PassMark)]

Maybe, there is so much (often mis-informed) information out there on the internet that it is hard to know what's true. For every motherboard there is someone, somewhere in the world who had a problem.

MemTest86 doesn't really make much use of the graphics card. So it is a bit hard to blame the video card for RAM errors. Not saying it is impossible, just unlikely. The fact that the lock up problem remains even when you aren't using the video card, just makes it all the more unlikely that the video card is the source of all the problems.

But it is also possible to have RAM errors that aren't causing problems in normal operation. That is to say, you might have a video card problem and a incidental minor RAM problem.