Found a neat trick for diagnosing bad RAM at a shop in Austin last week

I was at a little repair shop in Austin last week and saw a tech using a bootable USB with MemTest86+ running before even opening the case. He just let it run for 10 minutes and caught a bad stick on a system that wouldn't even POST. He said it saves him time compared to swapping parts blind. Has anyone else used this method, or do you prefer hardware testers for quick RAM checks?

2 comments

2 Comments

robert_roberts7d ago

Wait, slow down there. How often are you actually running into bad RAM that a ten minute MemTest is some kind of lifesaver? I fix computers for friends and family and I’ve seen maybe two bad sticks in five years. One of them was so dead the system just beeped at me, no test needed. The other was causing random crashes, and yeah, I ran a test, but it took like four hours to catch the error, not ten minutes. So either that shop in Austin is cursed with the world’s worst RAM supply or they’re making a big deal out of a tiny problem. I’d rather swap a known good stick in blind and see if it posts, takes five minutes and you’re done. Not saying it’s a bad trick, just feels like overkill for something you almost never see.

angela_carter6d agoMost Upvoted

That Austin shop must be buying their RAM from a gumball machine or something. I mean, how many bad sticks are they actually seeing to where a ten minute bootable USB routine is their big revelation? Robert's right, I've fixed maybe twenty machines for friends over the years and I've seen exactly one dead stick that was obvious from the beep codes, not some hidden gremlin you need a full diagnostic to catch. Maybe it's just me but swapping a known good stick in for thirty seconds seems way faster than waiting for some test to spin its wheels on a dead system. Sounds less like a neat trick and more like they're turning a five minute job into a whole production for the customer's sake.