Howto Diagnose Bad Memory
 

Does your Windows-based PC crash for no apparent reason? Well OK, mine does too, but does yours crash often? At random times? With Nasty blue Screens of Death? If the answer is "yes", you may very well have a memory problem. Faulty memory, or RAM, is often the cause of the dreaded 'flaky PC' syndrome, those hard-to-replicate errors that get you nasty looks from the store technician because "…nothing seems to be wrong with it. Sir."


Like the Windows Memory Diagnostic below, this program is available both as a bootable floppy and a CD. This version of the Memtest software also identifies certain characteristics of the system it is running on, like the chipset, CPU type and memory speed. Memtest86+ has basic and advanced testing modes, differing in the time they take and the thoroughness of the testing. The basic mode should be sufficient to indicate any major problems with your memory. <brr>
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If you have more than one stick of memory in your system and you are experiencing errors, the next step is to determine where the problem lies. Any one of your memory modules could be faulty (though if you have recently upgraded your memory and started experiencing errors, common sense points towards the obvious culprit), as could one or more of the memory slots on your motherboard.

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