Ubuntu 12.10 warning - Memtest86+ faulty and shows RAM failing at Test#7

abssorb

Member
Hi!

For my first post I'd just like to share a pitfall to be wary of. If you have a Ubuntu 12.10 boot CD or LiveUSB, note that the Memtest86+ included is faulty. The boot image contains Memtest 86+ v4.20, but it suffers compiler bugs.

The upshot of this is Memtest86+ will show RAM as failing during Test#7 [Random Number Sequence] with many errors, but this is likely to be a false positive.
e.g. http://abssorb.com/hosted_images/pc/memtest/Order_524256_After_RAM_changed.jpg

Note that the a fix has been done for Ubuntu, but it has not yet made it onto the OS downloads. The memtest86+ v4.20 on the ubuntu iso is not the same as the memtest86+ v4.20 on the memtest.org site, even though the version numbers match.

SOLUTION: A sound test can be made by visiting the memtest host site:
http://www.memtest.org/#downiso
Download a pre-compiled bootable iso, uncompress and burn to CD. This will boot straight into a working version of memtest86+.


This caught us out for a long time and we wasted over 30hrs of testing time. I can't thank the PC Specialist support guys enough for their help over the last week. :)


Thread on the Memtest86+ official support forum:
http://forum.canardpc.com/threads/7...-Fails-Test-7-on-one-platform-but-not-another.
 
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