Recent content by commando

I guess different software finds different things, because I definitely had faulty RAM, and HCI found it where memtest didn't. Previously I swore by memtest. RST is hardware, right?

I did a windows backup software review recently. It's targeted at photographers, but it's broadly applicable. It separates backing up large media files and smaller documents, as I couldn't find one backup program I thought was good at both. Note that I didn't really cover OS backup software...

You can test a disk with this software. If the number stays stable I'd probably keep using it, but of course you have backups? Also make sure any backups are real backups, not mirrors. If a file corrupts and you mirror it your backups are corrupt. If you have incremental backups you can...

I found HCI was much better at finding errors than memtest, which couldn't find errors no matter how long it ram for (the RAM was definitely faulty). Run HCI overnight at least, it didn't find problems on my PC until it hit 350%.

I found them good, with advance replacement of RAM recently. Even though memtest x86 didn't report a failure HCI memtest did at 350% tested, which they accepted. The RAM was definitely faulty, data corruption issues went away once RAM was replaced. Moral of the story: memory testing software...

From memory "Rapid mode" uses RAM as a disk cache. From what I've read it helps benchmarks but not practical computing, so I keep it turned off.

If you're worried you could get the HGST 7200rpm drives. I have three of the 7200rpm drives, all a few months old, no problems so far.

Corsair replaced the RAM, which is a bit over two years old, with new RAM that has the same model number. Great service from them I have to say. A couple of hours of testing that easily reproduces the problem with the old RAM has found zero errors. So my conclusion is it's the RAM. I find it...

The think is MemTest x86 reports everything 100% fine, it's only HCI memtest that finds errors from within Windows, and then only when four sticks of RAM are in use. Two sticks is fine for anything. My RAM is almost four years old, I'll contact Corsair but I'm not that hopeful of a resolution...

Interesting results. I've confirmed that any two sticks of RAM in any two slots works perfectly with RAM at stock 1.5V, with HCI memtest and copy tests. I've also confirmed that at 1.58V it works perfectly with all four sticks of RAM, passing HCI and copy tests - so I guess that's the answer...

Interesting, I'll give that a shot with an 8h memory test tonight :) Fortunately the case has pretty good cooling, the RAM is warmish but not hot right now.

Yes the power appears to be plugged in square and well. I've given it a bit of a jiggle and another push in. BIOS is on the latest version. Intel RST was installed, previous version, it wouldn't update so I uninstalled it. I've downloaded and run the Intel Chipset Device Driver, but I'm not...

Well I've spent the entire day running memory tests with HCI Memtest. The first test above showed that there was a memory problem. I've run a series of tests today (to 100%) and I couldn't reproduce the problem with HCI but did with other testing software. It's quite discouraging. I do think RAM...

Ok then, I'll do that. Can I happily run with 12GB? I know I won't get the whole dual channel RAM thing working with 12GB, but I'm not too bothered, I don't do anything super performance critical. I know it's not ideal, but if I wanted to could I buy another 4GB stick, or 2x4GB to get me back...

HCI Memtest has found bad RAM - evilsofa was bang on. I think I owe you a beer. Their FAQ suggests first seeing if you can use more conservative RAM timings, then testing each DIMM separately to work out which one it is. Of course it can only test free memory, not memory in use by the OS, so...