Larc said:
Thanks very much for the help. I've already downloaded and installed
Memtest86+ to a floppy and will try it later.
BTW, I was using Memtest86 v3.0 but upgraded to the latest v3.4. I
couldn't get it to work correctly on either computer I tried it on
(both CD and floppy). All the tests would appear to run in about four
seconds and then a summary of extensive errors in every test would
come up. Had to drop back to v3.3. It works with no problems.
Larc
Why not try the latest one from here ?
http://www.memtest.org/
There are two streams of memtest, and the one at
memtest.org picked up, after updates for the other
version stopped for a while. So you have the
choice of two different web sites.
The memory tester respects the memory map defined
by the BIOS. If the BIOS says there are several
"do not touch" areas, then memtest works around them.
(It wouldn't be very healthy, if the BIOS was writing
in one of those zones, when memtest came barging in,
and vice versa. Memtest would conclude the memory was
bad.)
A possible reason your test results returned so fast,
is the test program has got confused about what is
reserved and what is not. It could be that by
misreading a reserved segment description, the
majority of the memory got reserved by accident.
It could be a programming bug.
Paul