Memtest86 vs HP's built in diagnostic tools

[brandonkick]

So I have this laptop that I'm working on, and in a round about way I end up running the built in hardware tests. It decides there are issues with the RAM modules, but of course doesn't say which one or give any more detail than an error code.

I diagnose this machine to be the victim of a middle eastern Kevin style tune up and windows will not boot.

Machine appears to have zero on it beyond what you'd find on a clean install, so looks to be a great candidate for a nuke and pave and upgrade to SSD as this thing has a WD Blue 1TB. Not a bad specced machine though, 6th Gen Core i5 and 8GB of ram.


Anyways, I decide to download Passmark's memtest86 and give it a whirl. 4 passes complete with zero errors... so did I not do enough passes? Is the HP test worthless? I can replace the sticks for about $50 but I'd hate to recommend a replacement when they seem fine.


TL;DR - Does anyone put stock into the HP built in testing tools?

 

[MDD1963]

Alas, even if it does test fine during the period of time you test it with tool A,B, or C, that does not mean intermittent issues cannot exist...

Upgrading to an SSD will take care of any drive corruption/glitch possibilities, but, if the testing software threw an error code pertaining to RAM, failure, that's certainly a cause for concern.....

 

[MichaelBits]

Re-seat the ram and run the HP test again, see if you still get an error.
If you do, I would disconnect any drives and run memtest over night and see if it manages to throw an error.

 

[timeshifter]

Did you run the HP test again? Curious if the errors it found were repeated.

 

[brandonkick]

Did you run the HP test again? Curious if the errors it found were repeated.

I ran the HP memory test a few times, once as part of the "quick test suite" and two more times as an individual component test.

I haven't done it again since re seating the memory sticks though.

Alas, even if it does test fine during the period of time you test it with tool A,B, or C, that does not mean intermittent issues cannot exist...


Upgrading to an SSD will take care of any drive corruption/glitch possibilities, but, if the testing software threw an error code pertaining to RAM, failure, that's certainly a cause for concern.....

Yeah I was thinking that same thing, just wondering if anyone had decent experience with the HP tool being full of crap or being known for crying wolf when everything was fine. My gut tells me to just quote them for the ram replacement and do it.

Re-seat the ram and run the HP test again, see if you still get an error.

If you do, I would disconnect any drives and run memtest over night and see if it manages to throw an error.

I did reseat the ram shortly after the first few HP diagnostic tests showed ram failure, but haven’t actually run the HP memory test since. I went straight to troubleshooting the rest of the machines problems and only returned to memtest86 at the end of the night when I determined the machine was the victim of a remote support scam.

I’ll run the HP test again soon, and then I’ll let the machine loop memtest86 overnight.

 

[fincoder]

If there are no other symptoms that could be attributed to faulty RAM then I would assume the HP test is giving a false positive.

 

[Markverhyden]

Interesting this was brought up. Bought several refurb HP 6300 recently for a customer. One booted, out of the box, to a BIOS RAM error. Updated BIOS, reseated, other tests. No problems other than the HP firmware. Since it was under warranty they sent me a new chip.

The problem, as far as I'm concerned, is these tests have a lot of false positives and false negatives. Done quite a number of service calls on IBM P series servers. Several were for RAM problems. I had the opportunity to talk to the NOC about some of these. None of them said there was a problem that they detected. Just that the agent reported a problem so they followed OEM recommendations.

Just like hard drives. Nickel solution to the dime problem. Cheaper to just replace even though it's wasteful.

 

[Diggs]

I've never been happy with Memtest. It knocks on the door and if it hears someone is home it moves on. I prefer Prime95. (or here) It knocks on the door and then beats the crap out of who ever answers......... Much more thorough.

 

[GreyWolf]

@Diggs Yup get multiple CPU's run Prime95 voila a instant Heat Plate The older version was CPU friendly the latest one's make sure you have decent thermal protection you can seriously do some decent harm with it.

 

[brandonkick]

The laptop now passes memory tests no problem.

The "free" version of memtest86 only lets you run it through 4 loops. I'm not sure I'm going to bother buying it, since this will have been the third time in over ten years that I've actually used a memory testing program. The last time I used one, it was the abandoned memtest86+ (they are giving the Microsoft Xbox platform a run for it's money with bad naming conventions.....)

So the machine is now running factory recovery, the owner didn't want to upgrade to an SSD. Oh well, I'm sure that blue will die in no time and taking this machine apart isn't so bad for a unit without a removable door to easily access the internals. Takes about 9 screws and 3-4 min to get the bottom of the shell off.

 

[Sky-Knight]

You know, just because something hasn't been updated since 2013 doesn't mean it's abandoned. There has been literally no need to change anything in Memtest86+, it just works, it still just works, it's always just worked. Now we're coming up on the sunset of BIOS, and when we're EFI only... then we have a problem. And open source will do its thing, someone will fix it.

But I'm not sure I care, there's a memory test built into just about every OS installer on the market now. But in this age of high speed RAM, I think the OEM tests while less accurate are better anyway. They'll tell you what DIMM is bad, it might not actually be bad, but it can tell you that data in half the time or less. RAM is cheap, time isn't... and so the world turns.

Now, can we get a memtest for SSDs please? Diagnosing an intermittently faulty SSD is still entirely too hard.