Na een serie verschillende BSODs in XP MCE en al eerder 15 passes Memtest 86+ (vesie 1.70) gedraaid te hebben, was ik eigenlijk op zoek naar een optie om de RAM van mijn videokaart (nVidia GeForce Go 7600) te testen. Video Card Stability Test bleek weinig op te leveren dus ging ik maar weer terug naar Memtest 86+. Na de address range ingesteld te hebben op 'probe' liep hij spontaan na 2 seconden vast. Enigszins gefrustreerd maar toch met goede hoop *eindelijk* iets op het spoor te zijn heb ik het nogmaals geprobeerd met de optie 'BIOS - all' (standaard is: 'Bios - std').
Dat leverde vervolgens een vastloper op na 7 seconden, met bijbehorende foutmeldingen:

Het volgende kon ik vinden over de e820-method (van de commerciele versie)
NB: advanced options zijn niet beschikbaar omdat Memtest de chipset niet herkent..
System specs:
Enclosure Type: Notebook
Hewlett-Packard HP Pavilion dv9000 (EY797AV#ABA) Rev 1
Processor a Main Circuit Board b
2.00 gigahertz Intel Core 2 Duo
64 kilobyte primary memory cache
4096 kilobyte secondary memory cache
Board: Quanta 30BD 66.21
Bus Clock: 667 megahertz
BIOS: Hewlett-Packard F.15
Drives Memory Modules c,d
598.90 Gigabytes Usable Hard Drive Capacity
103.86 Gigabytes Hard Drive Free Space
HL-DT-ST DVDRAM GSA-4084N [CD-ROM drive]
ST910021AS [Hard drive] (100.03 GB) -- drive 0
WD 5000KS External USB Device [Hard drive] (500.11 GB) -- drive 1 2046 Megabytes Installed Memory
Slot 'DIMM 1' has 1024 MB
Slot 'DIMM 2' has 1024 MB
NVIDIA GeForce Go 7600 [Display adapter]
Dat leverde vervolgens een vastloper op na 7 seconden, met bijbehorende foutmeldingen:

Het volgende kon ik vinden over de e820-method (van de commerciele versie)
Ben ik iets op het spoor of ligt het probleem bij het niet beschikbaar zijn van het geheugen?However, safely and reliably detecting all of the available memory has been problematic. Versions of Memtest86 prior to v2.9 would probe to find where memory is. This works for the vast majority of motherboards but is not 100% reliable. Sometimes the memory size detection is incorrect and worse probing the wrong places can in some cases cause the test to hang or crash.
Starting in version 2.9 alternative methods are available for determining memory size. By default the test attempts to get the memory size from the BIOS using the "e820" method. With "e820" the BIOS provides a table of memory segments and identifies what they will be used for. By default Memtest86 will test all of the ram marked as available and also the area reserved for the ACPI tables. This is safe since the test does not use the ACPI tables and the "e820" specifications state that this memory may be reused after the tables have been copied. Although this is a safe default some memory will not be tested.
Two additional options are available through online configuration options. The first option (BIOS-All) also uses the "e820" method to obtain a memory map. However, when this option is selected all of the reserved memory segments are tested, regardless of what their intended use is. The only exception is memory segments that begin above 3GB. Testing has shown that these segments are typically not safe to test. The BIOS-All option is more thorough but could be unstable with some motherboards.
The third option for memory sizing is the traditional "Probe" method. This is a very thorough but not entirely safe method. In the majority of cases the BIOS-All and Probe methods will return the same memory map. For older BIOS's that do not support the "e820" method there are two additional methods (e801 and e88) for getting the memory size from the BIOS. These methods only provide the amount of extended memory that is available, not a memory table. When the e801 and e88 methods are used the BIOS-All option will not be available. The MemMap field on the display shows what memory size method is in use. Also the RsvdMem field shows how much memory is reserved and is not being tested.
Bron: http://www.memtest86.com/tech.html#size
NB: advanced options zijn niet beschikbaar omdat Memtest de chipset niet herkent..
System specs:
Enclosure Type: Notebook
Hewlett-Packard HP Pavilion dv9000 (EY797AV#ABA) Rev 1
Processor a Main Circuit Board b
2.00 gigahertz Intel Core 2 Duo
64 kilobyte primary memory cache
4096 kilobyte secondary memory cache
Board: Quanta 30BD 66.21
Bus Clock: 667 megahertz
BIOS: Hewlett-Packard F.15
Drives Memory Modules c,d
598.90 Gigabytes Usable Hard Drive Capacity
103.86 Gigabytes Hard Drive Free Space
HL-DT-ST DVDRAM GSA-4084N [CD-ROM drive]
ST910021AS [Hard drive] (100.03 GB) -- drive 0
WD 5000KS External USB Device [Hard drive] (500.11 GB) -- drive 1 2046 Megabytes Installed Memory
Slot 'DIMM 1' has 1024 MB
Slot 'DIMM 2' has 1024 MB
NVIDIA GeForce Go 7600 [Display adapter]