Computer memory dump?

One of the older (5-6 years) desktops quite often just crashes, but then comes back rather fast without loosing anything. I am investigating the problem on the assumption that one of the memory sticks is faulty.
To complicate the issue, it has 3 sticks, and I am adding a 4th one, since I have the slot and the extra stick.
Right now I removed 2, and after 1 hour, sure enough it crashed again. I looked into using Memtest86 as a diagnostic tool, but I have to test each stick individually anyway, so right now I just test them by average usage.

It is possible that the crashes are not memory related. For the memory test I would prefer a quick online test if possible, instead of burning ISOs and such...

 

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How often does memory go bad?

 

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Only once.

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Statistically speaking, I don't know... McGyver probably will tell us. My guess is maybe 5-10% of the time..

I managed to download and burn the ISO image of Memtest86, so I am running it on 2 sticks using the other computer. Since I am writing this on the crash computer, the test should give me a good result.

I also discovered 2 more sticks in another desktop having around, so I have 9 sticks altogether, between 128 MB and 1 G... I only need 6 working ones...

 

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OK, tested one 1G, it was OK. Once I have 2 sticks tested, I can put them back into the crash computer and see if it still crashes. If so, it isn't a memory problem...

The test took about 20 mins to run. I assume smaller the stick faster the test...

Question for McGyver: When finally I will have 4 good sticks with different sizes, is there any advised way to pair them up when I put them in??? Like 1-1G together, 512-512 also together, or is it 1G-512 and another 1G-512 pairing?

 

All memory used has to be DDR or SDR, not both.

If you match memory with various different speeds; it will automatically select the slowest one. So if you have 3 fast ones and 1 slow one...you're better of going with less ram.

Note that memory doesn't go bad that often, it's a relatively simple component. If it has gone "a little" bad you should only see problems during intensive activities. If it's gone "really bad" you should be able to look at it and see the problem.

If you're having problems and they are all testing fine...maybe they are too hot.

 

But it depends on what you are doing. Personally i would go with more ram for less paging. Were only talking about nanoseconds.

 

They did test all fine, and heat was my next suspicion. So I got ride of some not so important parts, like floppy driver, thus there is more air circulating inside.

All the memory sticks are the same type, DDR, only the size is different. Now I have altogether 3 G in it, I went with the 1G-512-1G-512 set up. I guess I did increase the memory size, so that might also help in the future.

Right now I am running a PC cleaner and I also made sure lots of programs don't load right after turn on.

By the way this is the computer that wakes up at all times from Hibernation, usually annoying me when it does it during the night. This is a P4 with XP on it...

 

If you really want to make sure it is heat...try opening up a bunch of versions of Adobe Photoshop : )

Then open up your box side, blow a fan at the mb, and try it again.

If it doesn't crash either time, problem is shoddy programming. If it crashes first but not second, it's heat. If it crashes both who knows. If it only crashes second time try making it hotter

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Well, so far no chrashes. The 3G memory and running the PC cleaner seem to have done the job. Maybe just a good cleaning and defragmentation were needed.
The hard drive also seems to be working less...

 

Sorry, Syz...didn't see this thread.

To answer your question, ram does indeed go bad, while not as frequently as hard drives. In my current machine, which I put together about a year ago, I originally bought 2 2 gig sticks, and one of them has gone bad. The machine wouldn't even post with the stick in the board. It's better to pair up the like sized chips so it will run in dual channel mode.

 

I know about the pairing, but how do you pair 2 1-1G and 2 512-512 in 4 slots?

1-1-512-512
1-512-1-512
1-512-512-1 ???

I did the 2nd way because of the colors of the slots. Since it is XP and 3 G, I don't think it really matters. I don't use any memory heavy application...

 

Syszy, take a look at this:

http://www.computing.net/answers/cpus/dual-channel-memory-vs-more-memory/12949.html

 

Thanks that's a little too complicated answer, I am not even sure if that desktop is dual channel or what. I guess it is working fine now, so let's not mess with it...