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Figuring out which RAM stick is faulty (discuss.tchncs.de)

submitted 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) by [email protected] to c/techsupport

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So I've been getting the occasional BSOD and it recently started getting a bit more frequent, so I decided to run a memtest86 over night to check if it's maybe the RAM causing it.
I got 1 error, so then I tested each stick, 1 by 1 (every new stick I would test I also put in a different slot) but I only tested first 3 sticks, thinking that the last one is faulty, since they all passed the test, but yesterday I decided to test the last one as well and that one passed as well. So now I'm confused, not sure what to do...
I was running on 3 sticks for 2 days and I didn't get BSOD, but that still means nothing because it was rare occurrence anyways.

Should I test all of the sticks again? Is there a better test I should be using instead?

(RAM is not OC'd btw)

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[–] donuts 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

Are you sure it's the RAM? It could be a myriad of things, like software problems, too.

I'd try a fresh install of your OS as well, just to see if that will smoothen things out.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Well googling suggested that the problem could be a graphics card driver. So I used DDU to clean the drivers and then I installed fresh ones but it didn't help.
But as I said, the RAM test failed when I did it with all 4 sticks...

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Just one error in a full trst run with all 4 sticks? Maybe RAM voltage settings need some tweaking? I don't know how common this is these days, but more RAM generally needed higher voltage to be stable. Usually any kind of RAM issues are pretty frequent though and too low voltage tends to fail at boot.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Yeah 1 error with all 4 sticks.
I never really tinkered with voltage settings.
PC is old, so I wouldn't be surprised if things started dying, I'm mostly just trying to pinpoint the broken part so I can remove it.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

Could also be the power supply that is dying..