Shoutout to the tech who showed me a better way to test RAM

Had a stick go bad on a client's Dell last week in Austin, was about to run MemTest86 for an hour. The senior guy just said 'boot HCI MemTest off a USB, it finds bad sectors in 5 minutes flat.' Tried it, caught the error in under 3 minutes. Anyone else use that over the usual tools?

2 comments

2 Comments

craig.brian2d ago

Three years ago I would have bet money MemTest86 was the only way to go. Then I had a machine that kept blue screening but passed the standard test after two hours. A buddy from the shop said try HCI MemTest. Found a bad address in about 4 minutes. I still run MemTest86 for overnight burn-ins on new builds but for quick diagnostics HCI is my go to now. It just works.

coleman.christopher2d ago

My buddy in San Antonio had the same experience as @craig.brian with a Lenovo laptop, swapped to HCI MemTest and caught a bad sector in under two minutes. He hasn't used MemTest86 for quick jobs since.