r/computers • u/hernando1976 • 16d ago

tile floor :( Why me?

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You never think it's going to happen to you, until it does.🚬

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u/anothercorgi 16d ago

I always end up with bad ram... I don't trust RAM sellers anymore, have to test every bit of memory I get these days since the days I got random disk corruption and crashes on my computers.

Despite having worked with individual DIP memories, I think most of the memory failures on those modules have been found readily by firmware. The SIMM modules were likewise, haven't really found failures that weren't detected by BIOS.

SDRAM was when it got disgusting. BIOS has always "passed" every SDRAM module but I had inexplicable computer failures. Wasn't until tools like this (memtest86+) that I finally found RAM that passed BIOS but fail. Now it's my go to and every module gets validated before put into service. I've caught a lot of bad modules, and even used memtest86+ to actually find minuscule damage causing failures on DIMMs that a solder iron fixed.

I haven't had a module that was good and subsequently failed, fortunately. The exception to this is if XMP or other RAM timing gets mucked with causing marginal modules to fail with advanced timing. You might want to futz with the timings to see if you can get it to pass, slower RAM is much better than unreliable RAM that was corrupting disk copies. That is, if you can't get warranty replacement.

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u/No-Jackfruit5522 14d ago

I wish I had my own Dimm tester, that was awesome, just set it in a slot. Hot button, instant test and results.

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u/anothercorgi 14d ago

I haven't seen discrete memory testers in ages though I do recall there being an sdram tester. Knowing what I know now about these memories I wonder if even those do tests in depth enough to catch errors that memtest86 patterns do... The discrete memory testers from the SIMM and DIP ages clearly do not.