Can MEMTEST86+ check memory running at faster bus speed?

On Thu, 14 Oct 2004 22:50:30 +0100 There I was minding my own business
and then Franklin wrote :

I have set my motherboard/BIOS to exceed the normal the bus frequency
by just a little bit. Now I would like to test my memory to see if
it is ok under the new settings.

Memtest86+ from http://www.memtest.org/ looks like a good memory
tester. You make a special floppy and boot from the floppy. So it
tests before Windows is launched.

Does Memtest86+ test memory taking into account my newly chosen bus
frequency settings?

Or does it somehow ignore most motherboard settings (like my
frequency increase) and test the memory "raw"?

No software RAM testers are that much use IMHO.Memtest86+ won't point
out anything of relevance in overclocking,none of them will.
My 0.2




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On Thu, 14 Oct 2004 22:50:30 +0100, Franklin wrote:

I have set my motherboard/BIOS to exceed the normal the bus frequency
by just a little bit. Now I would like to test my memory to see if
it is ok under the new settings.

Memtest86+ from http://www.memtest.org/ looks like a good memory
tester. You make a special floppy and boot from the floppy. So it
tests before Windows is launched.

Does Memtest86+ test memory taking into account my newly chosen bus
frequency settings?

Or does it somehow ignore most motherboard settings (like my
frequency increase) and test the memory "raw"?







[ crossposted. relevant groups]

The BIOS controls the memory timing, the memory will run at whatever
speed you've set it at. Memtest86 is as good a test as ay to see if your
memory still works. Be advised that by overclocking your system you've
given up timing margins. Just because it works when the room is cool or
when you system is under light load doesn't mean it will work if the room
gets 10 degrees warmer.

On Thu, 14 Oct 2004 22:50:30 +0100, Franklin
wrote:

I have set my motherboard/BIOS to exceed the normal the bus frequency
by just a little bit. Now I would like to test my memory to see if
it is ok under the new settings.

Memtest86+ from http://www.memtest.org/ looks like a good memory
tester. You make a special floppy and boot from the floppy. So it
tests before Windows is launched.

Does Memtest86+ test memory taking into account my newly chosen bus
frequency settings?

Or does it somehow ignore most motherboard settings (like my
frequency increase) and test the memory "raw"?


There is no such thing as "raw" testing that isn't dependant
on the host device setting the memory bus speed. In other
words, yes it tests "overclocked" settings, which to a
memory module means just another (any particular) speed,
it's all relative.

On Thu, 14 Oct 2004 23:05:20 +0100, Shep© wrote:

On Thu, 14 Oct 2004 22:50:30 +0100 There I was minding my own business
and then Franklin wrote :

I have set my motherboard/BIOS to exceed the normal the bus frequency
by just a little bit. Now I would like to test my memory to see if
it is ok under the new settings.

Memtest86+ from http://www.memtest.org/ looks like a good memory
tester. You make a special floppy and boot from the floppy. So it
tests before Windows is launched.

Does Memtest86+ test memory taking into account my newly chosen bus
frequency settings?

Or does it somehow ignore most motherboard settings (like my
frequency increase) and test the memory "raw"?

No software RAM testers are that much use IMHO.Memtest86+ won't point
out anything of relevance in overclocking,none of them will.
My 0.2

True that software testers are limited in their capabilities but to say
that none will "point out anything of relevance" is absurd and
ill-informed. Have you even tried it?

Memtest86+ is actually a good, if not the best, software based memory
tester. It is certainly a very good confidence check that nothing is
horribly awry and I consider it standard practice to run Memtest86+ for a
couple of hours before attempting installation of an OS. IME, a system
which has passed the checks - as well as a hard disk diagnostic - has
always installed and run the OS without problems.

Rgds, George Macdonald

"Just because they're paranoid doesn't mean you're not psychotic" - Who, me??

In comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.chips Franklin wrote:
Does Memtest86+ test memory taking into account my newly
chosen bus frequency settings?

Yes, chipset/bus freq is set by the BIOS when the machine
boots, not by the OS.

memtest86 is a very good, extensive, memory tester.
It is not a intensive (high bandwidth) as I would like,
so I wrote some in my CPUburn package. Try `burnMMX`.

-- Robert author `cpuburn` http://pages.sbcglobal.net/redelm

On 15 Oct 2004, Robert Redelmeier wrote:

In comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.chips Franklin
wrote:
Does Memtest86+ test memory taking into account my newly
chosen bus frequency settings?

Yes, chipset/bus freq is set by the BIOS when the machine
boots, not by the OS.

memtest86 is a very good, extensive, memory tester.
It is not a intensive (high bandwidth) as I would like,
so I wrote some in my CPUburn package. Try `burnMMX`.

-- Robert author `cpuburn` http://pages.sbcglobal.net/redelm

Looks neat.

Does your CPUburn have any special points when compared to the cpu
testers discussed at Radifed?

Like Prime95, Motherboard Monitor's 'Heat Up', HotCPU Tester Pro
Lite, etc.

http://radified.com/Articles/stability_testing.htm

On Fri, 15 Oct 2004 11:03:17 +0100, CrackerJack
wrote:

so I wrote some in my CPUburn package. Try `burnMMX`.

-- Robert author `cpuburn` http://pages.sbcglobal.net/redelm

Like Prime95, Motherboard Monitor's 'Heat Up', HotCPU Tester Pro
Lite, etc.

http://radified.com/Articles/stability_testing.htm

How I test stuff; see my site unter comp/testing ...
that Robert´s program does not stress memory much, but instead if run
on high priority, it heats the "hellOfa****" the CPU (more than his
CpuBurn & much more than any other program I tested & did a lot of
them! - I have temp reading from CPU internal diode!

Well, for just memory testing (it heats it too well & also chipset!)

you can use known Sandra (Burn-in wizzard) set to only do mem testing,
(no need for install DL, just unpack, import *.reg key before running
doubleclicking exe file) :
http://users.volja.net/jerman55/SiSoftSandraMin.zip
(its INDEX is also the best real life performance HD subsistem test!)

or better even WinRar mem bench (no need for install DL) :
http://users.volja.net/jerman55/WinRAR33.exe
(after running it & closing nag screen start it with Alt+B together).

Leave it running & time to time check if any errors ... or BSODs or
illegal ops ...

With this one you will get also a REAL life BENCH of performance of
your ram subsistem (useful for tweaking chipset too) & not just
theorethical max bandwith of it like Sandra reports (which BTW in 99%
cases NEVER happens, but is good for marketing purposes for
manufacturers for "brainwashing" customers!)

PS. for true life CPU performance bench, there is also:
http://users.volja.net/jerman55/CPUmark.exe

All these 3 progs can be used for direct comparision of performance
between differents PCs platforms to know which is better (not for
gaming, since set lacks of real life videocard bench).

Hope I helped ...
--
Regards, SPAJKY ®
& visit my site @ http://www.spajky.vze.com
"Tualatin OC-ed / BX-Slot1 / inaudible setup!"
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George Macdonald wrote:
On Thu, 14 Oct 2004 23:05:20 +0100, Shep© wrote:


On Thu, 14 Oct 2004 22:50:30 +0100 There I was minding my own business
and then Franklin wrote :


I have set my motherboard/BIOS to exceed the normal the bus frequency
by just a little bit. Now I would like to test my memory to see if
it is ok under the new settings.

Memtest86+ from http://www.memtest.org/ looks like a good memory
tester. You make a special floppy and boot from the floppy. So it
tests before Windows is launched.

Does Memtest86+ test memory taking into account my newly chosen bus
frequency settings?

Or does it somehow ignore most motherboard settings (like my
frequency increase) and test the memory "raw"?

No software RAM testers are that much use IMHO.Memtest86+ won't point
out anything of relevance in overclocking,none of them will.
My 0.2


True that software testers are limited in their capabilities but to say
that none will "point out anything of relevance" is absurd and
ill-informed. Have you even tried it?

Yes. Memtest86 performs a series of read writes to the memory and
doesn't bugger about with clock speed as a 'problem detection' feature.
If all the read/writes work, then it gets a pass, if not errors are
reported. It doesn't say 'try lowering your clock speed and see if these
errors go away'. You'll have to figure that yourself :-)


Memtest86+ is actually a good, if not the best, software based memory
tester. It is certainly a very good confidence check that nothing is
horribly awry and I consider it standard practice to run Memtest86+ for a
couple of hours before attempting installation of an OS. IME, a system
which has passed the checks - as well as a hard disk diagnostic - has
always installed and run the OS without problems.

Rgds, George Macdonald

"Just because they're paranoid doesn't mean you're not psychotic" - Who, me??


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In comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.chips CrackerJack wrote:
Does your CPUburn have any special points when compared to
the cpu testers discussed at Radifed?

Like Prime95, Motherboard Monitor's 'Heat Up', HotCPU Tester
Pro Lite, etc. http://radified.com/Articles/stability_testing.htm

I really haven't had much time to look around. If I had the
time, I'd be releasing `burnRAM` [need win32 port] and `burnP7`
[needs some signals work].

It's very easy to get "100% CPU utilization" according to
the OS. `jmp $` or `while(1);` will do. The OS always has
something to run (not the idle thread), so it thinks it's busy.
If you can't get 100% (MS-Win9*), it's a priority issue.

But this is only around 70% of max power draw. Not all the
chip circuits are kept busy. I've crafted my burn* pgms in
assembly (natch!) to try to keep as much busy as possible.
Without any constraint of actually doing useful work!

Some programs can keep the CPU 100% runnable but really not
be compute-limited. Doing useful work is a bit of a limit.
I stuff useless instructions in. SETI@home was notorious for
very odd times for work unit completion (memory fetch bound).

I _don't_ claim my pgms are the hottest possible. I'm sure
that Intel and AMD use better ones as part of their CPU
manufacturing testing. But those are deep dark secrets.
Mine is Open Source.

-- Robert author `cpuburn` http://pages.sbcglobal.net/redelm

(email invalid, changed ISP -- you figure it out)

Franklin wrote:
Memtest86+ from http://www.memtest.org/ looks like a good memory
tester. You make a special floppy and boot from the floppy. So it
tests before Windows is launched.


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