Confirming that I have bad RAM?
 

My computer's been acting up on me recently, and I've going through the guantlet of trying to figure out what's wrong with my system. Things seem to be pointing to me having some bad RAM. I've removed one of the clips, and things seem to be better for now.

But how do I confirm that I have faulty RAM? I'd rather not just throw out my 512 clip without being sure that it's bit the dust...

Run memtest86. Everything you need to know about the program is on that page, too.

Here is how I test for a faulty ram chip.
Make a zip file bigger than 700mb.
Copy it to another drive or dir.
Test the copied zip.

I have two 512 clips in my system. I've run memtest with each installed invidually.

With one of the clips, Memtest seemed to crash during test 3 (maybe 4?). My system would just reboot without warning.

With the second clip, Memtest does report some errors, during tests 6 and 7. And with every error reported, the bit that's wrong always appears to be the left-most bit.

And flat5, about copying files: I've been having issues with Windows XP setup and installing XP service pack 2; both seem to be having problems copying files to where they're supposed to be. I've swapped out hard drives and IDE cables, and I get the same problems...

Any ideas what that could indicate? I mean, both my RAM clips failing on me at the same time? I'm fearing that I've got a bad motherboard. I think my next step is to try and re-flash the BIOS...

Wow, it CRASHED memtest86!? Crazy.

I just went through what you're going through--read this thread: http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showthread.php?t=96739

Are the errors consistent with the second card? I mean, consistent over multiple passes?

Sounds to me like the first stick is toast and the second one has some problems.

You seem to have bad ram. Or maybe the mainboard, as you say.
Can you put the memory in another computer and test?
Can you put memory from another computer on your mainboard and test?

Did you buy very cheap memory? Maybe it was a bad "run".

No, the tests weren't consistent, unfortunately.

The good news is, flashing my BIOS seems to have done the trick. Since doing that, every single problem I've been having has gone away. I still only have the one mem clip installed, and I haven't bothered to run memtest since flashing my BIOS. I'm going to put the other clip in when I get a chance. But hopefully it wasn't my RAM after all...

It's common for mb makers to improve RAM compatibility with new BIOS releases. Check their release notes and you may find this mentioned. Anyway, good deal. Give it a night of memtest and keep an eye on it.

I'm not sure what version I had before upgrading to the latest, but none of the recent versions mention fixing compatibility issues that seem to relate to the problems I was having. Most of the fixes involve supporting new CPUs. But this is ASUS' website we're talking about, and it sucks, so who knows whether it's mentioning all the changes.

This wasn't cheap memory, either; some Corsair TwinX XMS clips. I've been using them for about a year now, so I think the original BIOS was fine with everything, the BIOS just got corrupted somehow. How that happens, I have no idea.

p.s., thanks for the help!