First time Memtest86 user

[Chi]

Ran Memtest86 3.4a Release (27/Dec/2007)
From the floppy drive
Took about 1.5hours to do 1st cycle it passed..(on old computer AMD athlon 1.3)


Questions
1. Is this the best program to test the RAM?
2. Does it matter weather I use floppy or CD-Rom?
3. How long does it take on a q6600 stock machine, 1 cycle?
4. How many cycles/passes should I do?
5. Is it ok to test RAM before I install OS
6. If I pass memtest86, RAM should definitely be ok during windows usage?
7. Anything else I should know?

 

[Admiral Huddy]

1. There are others but this is a good way of checking that RAM isn't faulty.
2. nope
3. I have to check on this but certainly not as long as yours. Remember of course, this is a memory test not a benchmark test.
4. Faults are most likely to surface within a few minutes of the first pass tbh.
5. Yes.
6. Yes, however, it doesn't mean the system will be stable in general as there are other factors to consider, like drivers, video HDDs etc etc..
7. Not really, I wouldn't use it for testing over clocking and general system stability as stated above. You might want to consider using Orthos Prime95. This way you can stress test the CPU or the CPU and memory separately. If this works within Windows for a few hours, then you have a stable system. It's a great tool for measuring overclocking stability. I tend only to use memtest for diagnosing possible RAM faults.

 

[Chi]

Thanks that cleared all that I needed to know.