Bad Memory

[m234578]

I ran memtest and got 1000's of errors. I have 2 sticks of Patriot G-series 2gb PC2-6400 ddr2-800mhz ram. I switched them out and discovered only one was giveing me errors. When I tested the bad one alone I got over 1000 errors in less than 30 secs. My computer seems to run ok with them both in, and its displaying 4gb of memory. Do I need to immediately remove and replace the bad stick or is it ok to keep useing it?

 

[o1die]

If you are the original owner, try going to patriot's website and request an rma for the bad stick. I've never seen a bad stick mess up a board ram slot. If windows is running without bluescreens, you may be ok, but if the stick is bad, eventually you'll get bluescreens with ram error codes.

 

[RetiredChief]

(1) Try running prime 95 (blend mode - default). If you get errors - REMOVE, and as o1ldie indicated RMA the bad stick. Just run with the one stick until it is replaced.

(2) If getting errors in windows (ie prime 95), bluscreens or not I do not recommend continued use of the bad stick. You never know if the bad memory location is Data, part of an instruction, or a location. The first two are normally not a biggy - it's the 3rd one that can bite you big time as the location may be altered to point to the FAT, the boot sector, or even worse a bios location.

 

[m234578]

Best answer selected by m234578.

 

[truegenius]

I ran memtest and got 1000's of errors. I have 2 sticks of Patriot G-series 2gb PC2-6400 ddr2-800mhz ram. I switched them out and discovered only one was giveing me errors. When I tested the bad one alone I got over 1000 errors in less than 30 secs. My computer seems to run ok with them both in, and its displaying 4gb of memory. Do I need to immediately remove and replace the bad stick or is it ok to keep useing it?

try to use memory diagnostics of windows 7 to solve this problem of ram errors