How much do you test your RAM?

Zarathustra[H]

Zarathustra[H]

Extremely [H]
Joined
Oct 29, 2000
Messages
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Hey all,

The VmWare guide for new deployments for ESXi 5.x suggests testing ram for 72 hours prior to a new deployment.

Do you guys do this?

I've run a few passes onine this far without issues. When do you say enough is enough, and your ram is probably good?

Thanks,
Matt
 
Subscribed.

Also curious to hear what different tools people use to test/burn-in RAM and CPU.
 
Zarathustra[H];1041024375 said:
Hey all,

The VmWare guide for new deployments for ESXi 5.x suggests testing ram for 72 hours prior to a new deployment.

Do you guys do this?

I've run a few passes onine this far without issues. When do you say enough is enough, and your ram is probably good?

Thanks,
Matt
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Maybe for production, which I have not done, but personal, I just run prime for a bit and let her rip.
 
I would think 72 hours is excessive, but if it's mission critical stuff, sure, why not.

Linx, Intel Burn Test, and Memtest FTW.
 
So the Internet seems to think that Intel Burn Test and Prime95 produce different results when stressing the CPU where the CPU can pass IBT but fail Prime and the other way around.

you can pass ibt all day and still fail prime95 in less than an hour..
you can pass prime95 for 48 hours straight and still crash in ibt in the first 5 runs.
but it is more common to crash in prime before ibt.
Click to expand...

and

It's well worth doing some research and learning how to analyze the numbers though. The fact it doesn't crash is not good enough to assume stability. And keep an eye in the whea reports.
Click to expand...
source: http://www.overclock.net/t/1352945/is-intelburn-test-good-and-if-so-where-do-i-download-it
 
I just let Memtest run on a continuous loop for a few days. No biggie. This is why you have multiple hosts.
 
The VmWare guide for new deployments for ESXi 5.x suggests testing ram for 72 hours prior to a new deployment.
Click to expand...

I do at lest that much on every new server I add to my department.
 
+1 for Memtest, run at least 72 hours as many passes as possible. CPU I am less concerned about, if there is an issue there it will generally present almost immediately.
 
Do it the [H] way!

Slap the ram in and put that bad girl in production.

You also should be banging 11's and buy $10k desks with cash.

Any other way is just wrong.
 
Memtest 48-72h depending on application.

I have gotten enough Ram errors after 24h of burn-in that I learned not to do that anymore. Diagnosing Ram failures are annoying as hell until you get a knack for them. But they are still annoying in their random occurrences.
 
klank said:
Do it the [H] way!

Slap the ram in and put that bad girl in production.

You also should be banging 11's and buy $10k desks with cash.

Any other way is just wrong.
Click to expand...

+1 for the old school $10k Desk reference.

Seriously, 72hrs for production hosts
 
Nate7311 said:
+1 for the old school $10k Desk reference.

Seriously, 72hrs for production hosts
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LOL. Old school? Weren't the hardforums already practically middle aged by the time the $10k desk came around? :p

Let's call it middle school :p

Edit:

(and off topic)

I wonder what ever happened to Lantec. Was he too ashamed to come back here after that? :p
 
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wow the 10k desk, haha.

After seeing this thread I should really run some mem/cpu tests now...
 
Uhh, yeah, even if it's ECC, you test it.

I let it ran over one night. Plus my Supermicro board has patrol scrubbing active.
 
A lot of good info here.

Can someone help me understand when I am seeing in Memtest?

14752503328_7d9fa331af_o.jpg


On one hand it says (ECC : Detect / Correct) Scrub+

But on the other hand it says ECC Off.

Is the "Off" part just because it needs to turn it off for testing, or did I screw something up in the BIOS?

Also, I don't recall the Scrub+ being there last time. I think it appeared after I enabled "Advanced" ECC mode in the BIOS. (HP Server)

Can anyone briefly speak to the difference between Advanced and without Advanced? Presumably, advanced is more reliable but comes at a performance penalty? (Things always seem to work like this)

Thanks,
Matt
 
Side note:

I've always done all my memtests with whatever version came on the latest Ubuntu disk I had kicking around (in this case 4.20).

I just tested the latest version from memtest.org (5.01) and holy shit is it much faster. It does a full pass MUCH faster.

The release notes say something about optimizing the algorithms, as well as adding multicore support. Not sure which had the most impact, but I am very impressed with the increased speed.
 
been running memtest continuously since 2012, still not satisfied
 
I usually do 24h (ECC RAM, scientific computing workstation), but you guys have me scared. Maybe time to reboot and run a few more passes.

Which brings up a point, given the comment about newer version of memtest86 being much faster--shouldn't recommendations be in terms of number of passes not time elapsed? I seem to get about a pass every 18 hours on the typical system.
 
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