Memtest-like program that runs in windows XP?

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damonposey

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Is there a program that reasonably can stress memory without having to boot to memtest?
 
You really don't want to "test" RAM inside an operating system. The issue is you're running software - the OS - on top of the hardware, and then you're running an application on top of the OS on top of the hardware, and all THAT going on it happening through a hardware abstraction layer that has to translate machine hardware calls.

In other words, if any aspect of anything in that chain is fucked up or glitches, it could result in the "test" of the RAM to show errors that don't actually exist. Sooo...

memtest86+ or some other RAM testing software is the recommended method because they work outside of any software-based OS - they communicate directly with the hardware and are PROVEN solutions for testing RAM and doing it accurately.

Let's clear up a myth:

Prime95 is NOT a RAM tester - it's more accurate to say it can spot calculation errors in a CPU because of heat/stability issues - but you see the problem there right? Stability of a software based OS and stability of that same SOFTWARE tends to affect the results in the first place.

But Prime95 is not a valid tool for testing RAM specifically which is precisely what the OP asked for. Since the entire idea is testing RAM outside of an OS, there are no reliable and accurate Windows-based RAM testers, at least not in my extensive experience.
 
while I agree I will say that prime95 has as good a chance of failing out if you have bad memory as memtest. I've run both, and prime95 will fail out every time memtest detects errors. well ok maybe not every time but out of my experiences it's failed every time memtest found memory errors
 
Ultimately, this thread boils down to the point from JoeAverage. Testing within the OS has too many factors to reliably trust results on as granular of a question as this. If you're looking for a very high amount of confidence in RAM testing and results, you'll have to do it outside of an OS.
 
like I said I agree with joe. however, if you want to do a dirty generic test in prime95 see if it turns up anything there is nothing wrong with that. if something is up typically then I do a more specific test with memtest. you can surf the web while prime does it's thing. same can't be said for memtest without having another pc around. so to conclude I agree with joe. but if your dead set on not using memtest prime would be the next best thing. and yes it's not nearly anywhere as accurate.
 
Somnambulator said:
isnt memtest windows-based and memtest+ the bootable CD version? if so then try memtest...?
Click to expand...

No, both the MemTest.org and MemTest86.com camps have bootable versions. The MemTest86.com site also offers a Windows installable version. Though I still fall back to my previous comments regarding the OS-based memory test utilities in the purpose of this thread.

On a somewhat related note, it's an interesting story about how these two groups got started and are related to each other.
 
If I thought I really had a memory problem, then booting to Memtest would be no big deal for me. But, the OP really wants to run a memory test within Windows, I suppose this utility would do http://hcidesign.com/memtest/

Pssst run memtest....
 
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