Memory Test

[Antares 531]

I'm increasingly convinced that my computer has a memory problem. It
will stall out and I see the little icon going around in circles for
several seconds or sometimes minutes then it will recover and all is
fine until the next time. This happens about four or five times each
hour.

I've had this problem for several weeks and have tried everything I
can think of to determine the cause.

I'm running Windows 7 Home Premium with the latest updates. This is
installed on a homebuilt computer with an AZUS P7P55D motherboard. I
have plenty of free disk space and have checked the hard drives
several times but found no errors or bad sectors.

I am considering downloading and running the computer memory test
software from this site:

http://www.ehow.com/print/how_5507965_test-check-computer-memory-ram.html

Can anyone tell me if this software will do what it claims and is it
safe to use?

Thanks, Gordon

 

[SC Tom]

I'm increasingly convinced that my computer has a memory problem. It
will stall out and I see the little icon going around in circles for
several seconds or sometimes minutes then it will recover and all is
fine until the next time. This happens about four or five times each
hour.

I've had this problem for several weeks and have tried everything I
can think of to determine the cause.

I'm running Windows 7 Home Premium with the latest updates. This is
installed on a homebuilt computer with an AZUS P7P55D motherboard. I
have plenty of free disk space and have checked the hard drives
several times but found no errors or bad sectors.

I am considering downloading and running the computer memory test
software from this site:

http://www.ehow.com/print/how_5507965_test-check-computer-memory-ram.html

Can anyone tell me if this software will do what it claims and is it
safe to use?

Thanks, Gordon.

Windows 7 has that program already installed. Go to Start and type windows
memory diagnostics in the search box. The first result should be the one you
want. You'll have the option of rebooting and running it now, or scheduling
it to run the next time you restart your PC.

It's a pretty decent memory checker, but a better option is Memtest86+ from
here: http://www.memtest.org/ . The procedure is pretty much the same;
create a boot CD with it, then boot from it. It does a more thorough testing
of your RAM, and will usually show any errors after one pass.

 

[Dave-UK]

I'm increasingly convinced that my computer has a memory problem. It
will stall out and I see the little icon going around in circles for
several seconds or sometimes minutes then it will recover and all is
fine until the next time. This happens about four or five times each
hour.

I've had this problem for several weeks and have tried everything I
can think of to determine the cause.

I'm running Windows 7 Home Premium with the latest updates. This is
installed on a homebuilt computer with an AZUS P7P55D motherboard. I
have plenty of free disk space and have checked the hard drives
several times but found no errors or bad sectors.

I am considering downloading and running the computer memory test
software from this site:

http://www.ehow.com/print/how_5507965_test-check-computer-memory-ram.html

Can anyone tell me if this software will do what it claims and is it
safe to use?

Thanks, Gordon

You should already have the memory tool installed:
Control Panel (icon view) > Admin tools > Memory Diag.
I've never used it so I don't know if it's any good.

 

[charlie]

I'm increasingly convinced that my computer has a memory problem. It
will stall out and I see the little icon going around in circles for
several seconds or sometimes minutes then it will recover and all is
fine until the next time. This happens about four or five times each
hour.

I've had this problem for several weeks and have tried everything I
can think of to determine the cause.

I'm running Windows 7 Home Premium with the latest updates. This is
installed on a homebuilt computer with an AZUS P7P55D motherboard. I
have plenty of free disk space and have checked the hard drives
several times but found no errors or bad sectors.

I am considering downloading and running the computer memory test
software from this site:

http://www.ehow.com/print/how_5507965_test-check-computer-memory-ram.html

Can anyone tell me if this software will do what it claims and is it
safe to use?

Thanks, Gordon

I doubt that it's RAM causing the problem. Memtest 86 and the windows
memory checker are easily available. A more problematic memory to test
is the memory on the video card. I don't know of a way to easily test
all of the video card memory. Looking for video artifacts, and unusual
video corruption seems to be the usual method.

I'd ask if you have considered such things as buffering to disk,
malware, and whatever background programs are running?

For all I know, your P/C might be checking for email and such things
every five minutes or so, and the server or IP is causing the delay.
Stranger things happen.

A recent bandaid to a nagging video problem involving Xfire and a couple
of ATI/AMD video cards - -
The problem has occurred over a several year timeframe.
Exact symptoms have changed with driver and windows updates.
Temperature has a minor effect.
Applications involved are generally first person shooter or those with
high speed and high resolution graphics.
Far Cry 2 seems to currently be the worst offender. In the past Crysis2
was as bad or worse.

Symptoms occurring at various times
Video corruption of various kinds, usually falling into the below - -
Windows error - video card failed to respond in the allotted time.
Application lock, corrupt desktop icons
System lock
System crash (blue screen, last driver version)
Various errors pointing to video driver modules and occasionally DX modules.
Error occurs more frequently with xfire enabled. (Two video cards)

The System Memory passes every memory test you can think of.
Video memory can only be formally tested up to about 1/4 of the on card
memory.

On to the band aid.
Of all things, changing RAM from 1T to 2T make the symptoms go away.
DDR2, 4G system, 2G Video card memory, Win7-32
Note that the memory passes all testing at 1 or 2 T.

 

[BillW50]

I'm increasingly convinced that my computer has a memory problem. It
will stall out and I see the little icon going around in circles for
several seconds or sometimes minutes then it will recover and all is
fine until the next time. This happens about four or five times each
hour.

I've had this problem for several weeks and have tried everything I
can think of to determine the cause.

I'm running Windows 7 Home Premium with the latest updates. This is
installed on a homebuilt computer with an AZUS P7P55D motherboard. I
have plenty of free disk space and have checked the hard drives
several times but found no errors or bad sectors.

I am considering downloading and running the computer memory test
software from this site:

http://www.ehow.com/print/how_5507965_test-check-computer-memory-ram.html

Can anyone tell me if this software will do what it claims and is it
safe to use?

Thanks, Gordon

Lots of others have given you advice about checking your memory. And I
too trust memtest86+ as well. And if you have a Linux Ubuntu CD, it is
on their too. And you don't run Linux to use it either. It is one of the
options on the boot menu.

Now about keeping your computer up-to-date. I have 20+ laptops here and
about 5 years ago, I started testing some of them without updates. And
one thing is very clear, the ones that gets updates gets slower and
slower and the ones that doesn't, stay working just like they always did
year after year. This particular Windows 7 machine I am on right now
lost a bit of ground after SP1 was install. Even the Windows Experience
Index dropped a bit. And the Windows Media Center now plays the TV choppy.

So all of this testing and experience, I generally prefer non-updated
machines vs. updated machines. They work so much better. And I haven't
gotten any trojan or virus either. I do keep my antivirus checkers
up-to-date though. ;-)

 

[Antares 531]

I'm increasingly convinced that my computer has a memory problem. It
will stall out and I see the little icon going around in circles for
several seconds or sometimes minutes then it will recover and all is
fine until the next time. This happens about four or five times each
hour.

I've had this problem for several weeks and have tried everything I
can think of to determine the cause.

I'm running Windows 7 Home Premium with the latest updates. This is
installed on a homebuilt computer with an AZUS P7P55D motherboard. I
have plenty of free disk space and have checked the hard drives
several times but found no errors or bad sectors.

I am considering downloading and running the computer memory test
software from this site:

http://www.ehow.com/print/how_5507965_test-check-computer-memory-ram.html

Can anyone tell me if this software will do what it claims and is it
safe to use?

Thanks, Gordon

Thanks to all for your answers. I don't understand the problem at all.
The drive light goes on full time and the drives are whirring every
time I get this stall out. I checked the drives and they all have an
abundance of free space. I did a defrag and error check but this
didn't change anything.

It acts like something like an intricate backup process goes into
action every few minutes but when I check the Action Center I get the
message, "No current issues detected."

I have Microsoft Security Essentials on this computer and have it
updated regularly. It has never indicated any form of malware
invasion.

Baffling??? Gordon

 

[Paul]

Thanks to all for your answers. I don't understand the problem at all.
The drive light goes on full time and the drives are whirring every
time I get this stall out. I checked the drives and they all have an
abundance of free space. I did a defrag and error check but this
didn't change anything.

It acts like something like an intricate backup process goes into
action every few minutes but when I check the Action Center I get the
message, "No current issues detected."

I have Microsoft Security Essentials on this computer and have it
updated regularly. It has never indicated any form of malware
invasion.

Baffling??? Gordon

Keep Task Manager open. Click the top of the CPU column,
to "sort by % usage". Make sure the box is ticked to show
all users in the list.

Then, when all the "whirring" happens, go look at Task Manager,
and see what's chewing up cycles. Sure, it could show as
Explorer, and then you'd be no further ahead. But, perhaps
the guilty party will show 100% usage. And if the guilty party
is the AV software, you could be having a "knife fight" between
a piece of malware and the AV. I used to get those, when I had
a Kaspersky subscription, and I'd use certain Sysinternals programs.
Kasperksy would go nuts, and the machine would go to 100%, and
input was useless. And it was because the Sysinternals program
would make a request, Kaspersky would block it, over and over
again, in an infinite loop.

Paul

 

[BillW50]

Thanks to all for your answers. I don't understand the problem at all.
The drive light goes on full time and the drives are whirring every
time I get this stall out. I checked the drives and they all have an
abundance of free space. I did a defrag and error check but this
didn't change anything.

It acts like something like an intricate backup process goes into
action every few minutes but when I check the Action Center I get the
message, "No current issues detected."

I have Microsoft Security Essentials on this computer and have it
updated regularly. It has never indicated any form of malware
invasion.

Baffling??? Gordon

Yes I see this a lot under Windows 7. Especially coming back from
hibernation. This is one of the things I really don't like about Windows
7. Vista was worst and Microsoft fixed it sort of so things appear to
happen faster, but parts are really lugging and Microsoft hopes you
don't notice. Adding more memory seems to help. I don't know how much
you have or anything or even 32 or 64 bit. As it that makes a difference.

And I am not surprised that defragging didn't help. I have heard this
for decades. Back in the 80's it did make a big difference with MFM
drives. But since IDE drives, nothing to write home about. But the story
continues. I usually defrag mine about once every two years and I check
the boot up times and loading application and data before and after. And
the best times I ever got after defrag was about an 1% increase. :-(

 

[Yousuf Khan]

Thanks to all for your answers. I don't understand the problem at all.
The drive light goes on full time and the drives are whirring every
time I get this stall out. I checked the drives and they all have an
abundance of free space. I did a defrag and error check but this
didn't change anything.

I assume that this means that you've now run the memory test and found
nothing wrong with your RAM? If so, then I think that sounds right, the
symptoms you were describing didn't sound like RAM problems to me at
all, it sounded like disk problems to me instead.

It acts like something like an intricate backup process goes into
action every few minutes but when I check the Action Center I get the
message, "No current issues detected."

That's because that's not Action Center's job. Action Center looks for
things like whether backups are being run, or if an anti-virus is
installed.

For errors, you have to go into Event Viewer. Look for ATA or ATAPI disk
errors.

I have Microsoft Security Essentials on this computer and have it
updated regularly. It has never indicated any form of malware
invasion.

Yup, the symptoms don't sound like viruses either.

Yousuf Khan

 

[XS11E]

Thanks to all for your answers. I don't understand the problem at
all. The drive light goes on full time and the drives are whirring
every time I get this stall out. I checked the drives and they all
have an abundance of free space. I did a defrag and error check
but this didn't change anything.

It acts like something like an intricate backup process goes into
action every few minutes but when I check the Action Center I get
the message, "No current issues detected."

Have you carefully examined any backup software you may have to see if
there's an automatic backup enabled? Your comment above may be what's
actually happening if something is trying to backup your whole PC...

 

[Philip Herlihy]

I'm increasingly convinced that my computer has a memory problem. It
will stall out and I see the little icon going around in circles for
several seconds or sometimes minutes then it will recover and all is
fine until the next time. This happens about four or five times each
hour.

I've had this problem for several weeks and have tried everything I
can think of to determine the cause.

I'm running Windows 7 Home Premium with the latest updates. This is
installed on a homebuilt computer with an AZUS P7P55D motherboard. I
have plenty of free disk space and have checked the hard drives
several times but found no errors or bad sectors.

I am considering downloading and running the computer memory test
software from this site:

http://www.ehow.com/print/how_5507965_test-check-computer-memory-ram.html

Can anyone tell me if this software will do what it claims and is it
safe to use?

Thanks, Gordon

+1 for Memtest86+

Download Process Explorer from sysinternals.com (MS). On the performance
tab, compare Peak Commit Charge (= memory requested by system) with
Physical memory. If Peak Commit Charge is greater, more memory will
help. Try the scanner at www.crucial.com.

Do you have Google Desktop installed? If so, you have two indexes being
maintained - slows any PC to a crawl.

Otherwise, try also Process *Monitor* from sysinternals.com. Generates
vast output, so you need to understand the filtering. You can
understand exactly what's driving those disks.

Autoruns (yet again from sysinternals) will tell you what's being run
automatically at startup.

Good luck!

 

[Dave Cohen]

I'm increasingly convinced that my computer has a memory problem. It
will stall out and I see the little icon going around in circles for
several seconds or sometimes minutes then it will recover and all is
fine until the next time. This happens about four or five times each
hour.

I've had this problem for several weeks and have tried everything I can
think of to determine the cause.

I'm running Windows 7 Home Premium with the latest updates. This is
installed on a homebuilt computer with an AZUS P7P55D motherboard. I
have plenty of free disk space and have checked the hard drives several
times but found no errors or bad sectors.

I am considering downloading and running the computer memory test
software from this site:

http://www.ehow.com/print/how_5507965_test-check-computer-memory-ram.html

Can anyone tell me if this software will do what it claims and is it
safe to use?

Thanks, Gordon

I get this when my wireless printer is turned off. Not sure if any disk
activity since it's a laptop.

 

[Tony]

That could also happen from a bad sata cable from the hard drive to the sata
port. Try another sata or new sata cable.

I'm increasingly convinced that my computer has a memory problem. It
will stall out and I see the little icon going around in circles for
several seconds or sometimes minutes then it will recover and all is
fine until the next time. This happens about four or five times each
hour.

I've had this problem for several weeks and have tried everything I
can think of to determine the cause.

I'm running Windows 7 Home Premium with the latest updates. This is
installed on a homebuilt computer with an AZUS P7P55D motherboard. I
have plenty of free disk space and have checked the hard drives
several times but found no errors or bad sectors.

I am considering downloading and running the computer memory test
software from this site:

http://www.ehow.com/print/how_5507965_test-check-computer-memory-ram.html

Can anyone tell me if this software will do what it claims and is it
safe to use?

Thanks, Gordon

--
The Grandmaster of the CyberFROG

Come get your ticket to CyberFROG city

Nay, Art thou decideth playeth ye simpleton games. *Some* of us know proper
manners

Very few. I used to take calls from *rank* noobs but got fired the first day
on the job for potty mouth,

Bur-ring, i'll get this one: WHAT'S YOUR PROBLEM JERK!!? We're here to help
you dickweed, ok, ok give the power cord the jiggily piggily wiggily all the
while pushing the power button repeatedly now take everything out of your
computer except the power supply and *one* stick of ram. Ok get the next
sucker on the phone.

Deirdre Straughan (Roxio) is a LIAR (Deirdre McFibber)

There's the employer and the employee and the FROGGER and the FROGEE, which
one are you?

Hamster isn't a newsreader it's a mistake!

El-Gonzo Jackson FROGS both me and Chuckcar (I just got EL-FROG-OED!!)

All hail Chuckcar the CZAR!! Or in F-R-O-Gland Chuckcar laFROG laCZAR,
ChuckZar!!

I hate them both, With useless bogus bullshit you need at least *three*
fulltime jobs to afford either one of them

I'm a fulltime text *only* man on usenet now. The rest of the world downloads
the binary files not me i can't afford thousands of dollars a month

VBB = Volume based billing. How many bytes can we shove down your throat and
out your arse sir?

The only "fix" for the CellPig modem is a sledgehammer.

UBB = User based bullFROGGING

Master Juba was a black man imitating a white man imitating a black man

Always do incremental backups of your data or you'll end up like the A-Holes
at DSL Reports. Justin says i made a boo-boo. Yeah boo-who.

Updates are for idiots. As long as the thing works there's no reason to turn
schizophrenic and develop a lifelong complex over such a silly issue.

Adrian "jackpot" Lewis is a mama's boy!

Jimmy Fricke is good for the game of poker

Using my technical prowess and computer abilities to answer questions beyond
the realm of understandability

Regards Tony... Making usenet better for everyone everyday

This sig file was compiled via my journeys through usenet

 

[Tony]

Check the sata cable from the hard drive to the sata port. Interchange it with
the one from the DVD/CD drive.

Thanks to all for your answers. I don't understand the problem at all.
The drive light goes on full time and the drives are whirring every
time I get this stall out. I checked the drives and they all have an
abundance of free space. I did a defrag and error check but this
didn't change anything.

It acts like something like an intricate backup process goes into
action every few minutes but when I check the Action Center I get the
message, "No current issues detected."

I have Microsoft Security Essentials on this computer and have it
updated regularly. It has never indicated any form of malware
invasion.

Baffling??? Gordon

--
The Grandmaster of the CyberFROG

Come get your ticket to CyberFROG city

Nay, Art thou decideth playeth ye simpleton games. *Some* of us know proper
manners

Very few. I used to take calls from *rank* noobs but got fired the first day
on the job for potty mouth,

Bur-ring, i'll get this one: WHAT'S YOUR PROBLEM JERK!!? We're here to help
you dickweed, ok, ok give the power cord the jiggily piggily wiggily all the
while pushing the power button repeatedly now take everything out of your
computer except the power supply and *one* stick of ram. Ok get the next
sucker on the phone.

Deirdre Straughan (Roxio) is a LIAR (Deirdre McFibber)

There's the employer and the employee and the FROGGER and the FROGEE, which
one are you?

Hamster isn't a newsreader it's a mistake!

El-Gonzo Jackson FROGS both me and Chuckcar (I just got EL-FROG-OED!!)

All hail Chuckcar the CZAR!! Or in F-R-O-Gland Chuckcar laFROG laCZAR,
ChuckZar!!

I hate them both, With useless bogus bullshit you need at least *three*
fulltime jobs to afford either one of them

I'm a fulltime text *only* man on usenet now. The rest of the world downloads
the binary files not me i can't afford thousands of dollars a month

VBB = Volume based billing. How many bytes can we shove down your throat and
out your arse sir?

The only "fix" for the CellPig modem is a sledgehammer.

UBB = User based bullFROGGING

Master Juba was a black man imitating a white man imitating a black man

Always do incremental backups of your data or you'll end up like the A-Holes
at DSL Reports. Justin says i made a boo-boo. Yeah boo-who.

Updates are for idiots. As long as the thing works there's no reason to turn
schizophrenic and develop a lifelong complex over such a silly issue.

Adrian "jackpot" Lewis is a mama's boy!

Jimmy Fricke is good for the game of poker

Using my technical prowess and computer abilities to answer questions beyond
the realm of understandability

Regards Tony... Making usenet better for everyone everyday

This sig file was compiled via my journeys through usenet

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

I assume that this means that you've now run the memory test and found
nothing wrong with your RAM? If so, then I think that sounds right, the
symptoms you were describing didn't sound like RAM problems to me at
all, it sounded like disk problems to me instead.

Years ago I had a computer which repeatedly passed the two RAM tests
that I had then (I do recall that one was memtest86; maybe the other was
called DrMem?).

But, being telepathic, I really thought it was a RAM problem, so I used
the two sticks one at a time instead of as a pair, and the intermittent
failures disappeared when I used stick A, but not with stick B. I
replaced both sticks.

Of course, this is very old and very anecdotal cautionary tale.

 

[SC Tom]

Years ago I had a computer which repeatedly passed the two RAM tests
that I had then (I do recall that one was memtest86; maybe the other was
called DrMem?).

But, being telepathic, I really thought it was a RAM problem, so I used
the two sticks one at a time instead of as a pair, and the intermittent
failures disappeared when I used stick A, but not with stick B. I
replaced both sticks.

Of course, this is very old and very anecdotal cautionary tale.

I usually recommend testing that way, with only one stick at a time, since
it seems to speed the process up, and it makes it a lot easier to tell which
one is bad. I was pressed for time on my initial response and skipped that
part of it.

I have to admit though that I've never run into your situation where one was
bad but tested good in a pair. But with error correcting, I can see how it
could happen.

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

I usually recommend testing that way, with only one stick at a time, since
it seems to speed the process up, and it makes it a lot easier to tell which
one is bad. I was pressed for time on my initial response and skipped that
part of it.

I have to admit though that I've never run into your situation where one was
bad but tested good in a pair. But with error correcting, I can see how it
could happen.

Actually, the sticks *always* tested as good, singly or as a pair.

What changed was that the crashes during *regular* operation of the PC
stopped happening when I used only stick A.

 

[SC Tom]

Actually, the sticks *always* tested as good, singly or as a pair.

What changed was that the crashes during *regular* operation of the PC
stopped happening when I used only stick A.

Oh, yeah, I see that now. Another old fart brain fart reading it earlier :-(

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

Oh, yeah, I see that now. Another old fart brain fart reading it earlier :-(

I call it brainquake, but then I live near the San Andreas Fault

 

[Yousuf Khan]

Years ago I had a computer which repeatedly passed the two RAM tests
that I had then (I do recall that one was memtest86; maybe the other was
called DrMem?).

But, being telepathic, I really thought it was a RAM problem, so I used
the two sticks one at a time instead of as a pair, and the intermittent
failures disappeared when I used stick A, but not with stick B. I
replaced both sticks.

Of course, this is very old and very anecdotal cautionary tale.

I think that's more telling about the quality of the memory testing
programs at that time. You'd run into the same problem if you were silly
enough to trust the Microsoft memory tester rather than Memtest86+.
Microsoft Memory tester ran repeatedly on a friend's computer and found
nothing. Ran Memtest86+ on the same computer and it found the errors
within 5 minutes.

If the OP has already run Memtest86+ on his system and it found nothing,
then I'd be inclined to say that there really is nothing wrong with it.

Yousuf Khan