Ram/Memory Diagnostic! What a Tough Work!

• Summary

I refreshed my brain and got my memory back about how to do the RAM/Memory Diagnostic on PC again. The skills I had already known when I was a R&D engineer in Taiwan.


I used two tools as following:

1. Microsoft Official Tools
Windows Memory Diagnostic

2. MemTest86 - A Stand-alone Memory Diagnostic Tool
Memtest 86



Both tools would take a while - from few minutes to an hour - to finish the diagnostic job. Just be patient if you want to do the RAM test.

Here are other tool collections......More Tool Collections at 'SnapFiles'

• Full Story about WHY:

I have been using my Powerbook around 2 years with 1.25GB RAM ( 1 piece of 1GB, another piece of 256 MB) and both of RAM are working smoothly.

Since I got my Compaq laptop, which equiped 512 MB RAM (2 pieces of 256 MB), lots of daily works have been switched to Windows world. Thus, I decided to reblance my RAM setting - both Powerbook and Compaq V2000 laptop using the same RAM spec - PC 2700, CL 2.5

After easily switching RAM on both laptops, I happily used my Compaq - and Windows just crashed suddnetly - with 'PHISICAL RAM ERROR' in typical Windows XP Kernal Panic screen - yep, you are right, the white words and blue background one.

My first thinking was that I might damage the RAM during the switching processes - might be some things happened, or some ESD (ElectroStatic Discharge) damage the RAM accdiently.

Then you guys know. Did the search on Google and found out 'the forgotten solutions' as I had listed above.

• Conclusion:

1. The 1 GB RAM (originally installed on Powerbook) was not able to pass full-test on both Tools.

2. The 512 RAM (2 pieces originally installed on Compaq Laptop) passed sucessfully.

3. I switched the RAM back to their origional places, and then everything was going well surprisingly.

Although the RAM Specfication of both laptops are the same, I believe there is still something missing. For certain unknown reason, the MAC RAM seems to be different from the PC's side. Two yeas ago, I had tried uning regular PC's RAM on my previous iBook - that was totally fine.

Emm....I wondered someone could answer me the question.