Hi, On Fri, May 22, 2026 at 04:58:49PM -0700, David Christensen wrote: > On 5/22/26 13:22, nwe wrote: > > On 5/22/26 3:02 PM, Charles Curley wrote: > > If I'm correct, memtest86 is nearly useless on ECC RAM. > > MemTest86 v11.7 Free Edition claims to support ECC: > > https://www.memtest86.com/compare.html > > AFAICT memtest86+ does not support ECC. Some people suggest disabling ECC > in BIOS/UEFI Setup and then testing with memtest86+.
The only machines I have ECC RAM in also have Machine Check Exception messages go to a log in the firmware. I have experienced running memtest86 for a few successful complete passes and then finding messages in the firmware log about things that were corrected, which enabled me to locate the bad stick. Also, most of the time I've had RAM fail it's done so in a way that ECC can't fix, because ECC can only correct a single bit flip. So, I have continued ti find memtest86 useful although it would be a bit less so if I had no way to see the MCE log. Thanks, Andy -- https://bitfolk.com/ -- No-nonsense VPS hosting
