This is a very good first test when assessing a second hand unit.
This can be simply installed with debian. see below, for package details, I was trawling debian for some good packages and one day I rebooted and saw memtest86 in grub, now its part of my computer recycling routine. Pentium III 500 computers are very cheap and provide a fast responsive desktop for windows users who can live with the debian stability and low maintenance while using a slightly older gnome desktop which is just fine. Myself icewm, xterm, skippy.
regards
Owen
$apt-cache search memtest hwtools - collection of tools for low-level hardware management kernel-patch-badram - Kernel patch allowing to use partly-bad RAM modules memtest86 - A thorough real-mode memory tester memtest86+ - thorough real-mode memory tester memtester - A utility for testing the memory subsystem sysutils - Miscellaneous small system utilities. $apt-cache show memtest86 Package: memtest86 Priority: optional Section: misc Installed-Size: 152 Maintainer: Yann Dirson dirson@debian.org Architecture: i386 Version: 3.2-1.1 Suggests: hwtools, sysutils, kernel-patch-badram, memtest86+, grub (>=0.95+cvs2 0040624), mtools Filename: pool/main/m/memtest86/memtest86_3.2-1.1_i386.deb Size: 57510 MD5sum: b05e1f2608d79aef64840183584ed119 Description: A thorough real-mode memory tester Memtest86 scans your RAM for errors. . This version is apparently not as actively maintained upstream as memtest86+ is. Especially if you own a recent computer on which it does not work, you should consider looking at the memtest86+ package. . This tester runs independently of any OS - it is run at computer boot-up, so that it can test *all* of you memory. You may want to look at `memtest' (in package `sysutils'), which allows to test your memory within Linux, but this one won't be able to test your whole RAM. . This used to be part of the hwtools package, which still contains another real-mode memory tester (memmxtest) optimized for mmx machines (but apparently not maintained any more). . It can output a list of bad RAM regions usable by the BadRAM kernel patch, so that you can still use you old RAM with one or 2 bad bits. . A convenience script is also provided to make a grub-based floppy or image.
$apt-cache search memtest hwtools - collection of tools for low-level hardware management kernel-patch-badram - Kernel patch allowing to use partly-bad RAM modules memtest86 - A thorough real-mode memory tester memtest86+ - thorough real-mode memory tester memtester - A utility for testing the memory subsystem sysutils - Miscellaneous small system utilities. $apt-cache show memtest86 Package: memtest86 Priority: optional Section: misc Installed-Size: 152 Maintainer: Yann Dirson dirson@debian.org Architecture: i386 Version: 3.2-1.1 Suggests: hwtools, sysutils, kernel-patch-badram, memtest86+, grub (>= 0.95+cvs2 0040624), mtools Filename: pool/main/m/memtest86/memtest86_3.2-1.1_i386.deb Size: 57510 MD5sum: b05e1f2608d79aef64840183584ed119 Description: A thorough real-mode memory tester Memtest86 scans your RAM for errors. . This version is apparently not as actively maintained upstream as memtest86+ is. Especially if you own a recent computer on which it does not work, you should consider looking at the memtest86+ package. . This tester runs independently of any OS - it is run at computer boot-up, so that it can test *all* of you memory. You may want to look at `memtest' (in package `sysutils'), which allows to test your memory within Linux, but this one won't be able to test your whole RAM. . This used to be part of the hwtools package, which still contains another real-mode memory tester (memmxtest) optimized for mmx machines (but apparently not maintained any more). . It can output a list of bad RAM regions usable by the BadRAM kernel patch, so that you can still use you old RAM with one or 2 bad bits. . A convenience script is also provided to make a grub-based floppy or image.
On Fri, 24 Feb 2006 23:01:12 +0000 Wayne Stallwood ALUGlist@digimatic.plus.com wrote:
On Fri, 2006-02-24 at 15:37 +0000, Paul, Jean R wrote:
In addition while i am working with linux, the computer frozes at any time, or just reboots. i would appreciate any help from people who have had the same experience with their PC.
The first place to start is with the Memory...Bad ram can cause the problems you mention and be very very intermittent...I have seen RAM pass tests reliably until it is a certain temperature, ram fail until it is removed and reinserted into it's socket and ram fail until the BIOS settings are changed.
Grab a memtest iso and make yourself a memtest CD....Some distributions include this on the installation media and offer it as a boot option.
Run it overnight (or for at least 6-10 full passes) to be sure.
Also if your bios supports PC health status (a lot of modern ones do) then check the CPU temp is within normal operating limits (what these are will depend on your CPU)
I've had faulty PSU's cause a similar problem, so if you have access to a spare one then try it....I also had this repeatedly with a particular Epox mainboard (8RGA I think).
Unfortunately without the right test equipment fault finding these problems can come down to replacing components until the problem goes away...
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