Bad Ram?

[goldenfooler]

How do you know when the ram is bad?
I just added 2 new sticks and the meter showing the ram usage is not much better.
Seems like it should be a much lower percentage.

[Dead...Again]

If you suspect you have bad RAM, you should run MEMTEST86.
http://www.memtest86.com/

[Sirex]

From my experiences its been jerky software/os, crashes of programs and random momentary freezing of user input and outputs.
Mainly the last one i see most of the time, windows is sensitive to bad memory addresses.

But memtest is only way to be sure.
Nice thing is it gives you the address if the bad blocks so can roughly guess the sticks.

If you dont have much time to test a quick 'i wonder'trick i use is turn off pagefiles and open up a biggish file in notepad many times.
Filling the memory, and eventually hitting any errors, notepad will freeze or crash with access violatons.
But that only works if the bios has picked up on the memory sticks obviously

[juneau]

Did mtest show anything Fooler? Usually bad RAM displays itself as BSOD's. I'm wondering if yours might be a BIOS issue. Any updates available for it?

[goldenfooler]

I didn't try it. I just need the time and a something to write the program onto .
I now have 4 sticks of 4 gb ddr3 ram. One of the old ones I bet is bad. I never really had problems just seemed a little lag and the % meter of ram use only went down 4 % when I added the 8GB more.

I might just buy 2 new sticks of ram and replace the old ones. It cost me $50 dollars.

[WalkinTarget]

That's our GF .. throw $$ at it rather than diagnose it !! C'mon dude, learning how to troubleshoot your PC is a skill you will be able to use time after time !!!

Send me the 'bad' RAM and I will test it ..... if it's bad I can toss it out, if it's good I can .... nah, I will keep it

[K PhaNTOM]

I LOVE how he can't read how much ram he has. He's relying on the "meter" showing percentages. Do me a favor, right click on "My Computer" and select properties. It will show as "installed RAM." This is basic stuff, buddy. If it is showing 16GBs then you're good. Your computer isn't going to use LESS ram just because you added MORE ram. And maybe go read the entry for RAM on Wikipedia.

[goldenfooler]

I LOVE how he can't read how much ram he has. He's relying on the "meter" showing percentages. Do me a favor, right click on "My Computer" and select properties. It will show as "installed RAM." This is basic stuff, buddy. If it is showing 16GBs then you're good. Your computer isn't going to use LESS ram just because you added MORE ram. And maybe go read the entry for RAM on Wikipedia.

Oh I see it show the 16gb. It just has always felt tweaked. I just think something is wrong there. I had a previous problem where it did show the ram but it wasn't connected correctly and popping it back in helped. I just always wondered if it fully fixed it.
I will get around to it walking. It just is so much easier to buy new stuff... Now I have to learn more on top of all the other crap on my plate.

BTW I can make up the cost in my head by not going out to each much and just cooking it myself.

[{CLR} Cobalt]

From my experience it's best to buy ram in pairs. In other words if you're gonna buy 4 then get them all at the same time from the factory. The timings may be off on one of the pairs. Dont know if that might hinder it, but it could. Test it with just the new pair. See if it makes any difference.

[goldenfooler]

From my experience it's best to buy ram in pairs. In other words if you're gonna buy 4 then get them all at the same time from the factory. The timings may be off on one of the pairs. Dont know if that might hinder it, but it could. Test it with just the new pair. See if it makes any difference.

I should have done that. It is just a pita to get to the ram. One of the CPU fans is right over the ram.