How to test your RAM memory

If you have problems with blue screens and/or your computer is running slow and/or crashing, you might have a problem with bad memory.  You can easily test your memory using a bootable CD which you can create yourself.  It’s so easy.  All you need is a CD burner which comes with all computers for years now, a blank CD and a CD burning program like Nero which can burn ISO images.

Go to http://www.memtest86.com/ and click the link to their downloads.  On that page, you can see options for CD, floppy or USB flash drive.  You can use any option, although CD is the best in my opinion and so we are showing you how to do that.  Floppys just don’t come with computers anymore and USB flash drives are something you might want to reuse for something else where a CD is inexpensive and can be stored away for future use.

Download the ISO file from their website.  Save it on your desktop and extract the zip file so you can see the ISO file.  Now you can open your image burning program (Nero or whatever it is) and choose the type of burning as an image.  The exact instructions depend on the software you are using.  When you choose to burn an image, it will ask to select where your ISO file is that you downloaded and extracted.  Select that file and choose to verify the burn if that option is there for you.  Done.

Just pop that CD into any computer and reboot.  As long as the computer is set to boot from CD before it accesses the hard drive, it will load the memtest software automatically and start running.  If it has issues, it will show highlighted in red and count how many errors.  If it’s healthy, it will show 0 errors and nothing highlighted in red, except for maybe the title since they started highlighting that.

If you’re memory tests bad, you need to purchase more memory, and you can’t just buy any memory.  You need to get the right type of memory.  Check your motherboard manual or run another scan on www.crucial.com if you can access it using that computer and it usually can tell you exactly what type you need to buy.