==================== = Memtest86+ v5.01 = = 27 Sep, 2013 = = Chris Brady = ==================== Table of Contents ================= 1) Introduction 2) Licensing 3) Installation 4) Serial Port Console 5) Online Commands 6) Memory Sizing 7) Error Display 8) Trouble-shooting Memory Errors 9) Execution Time 10) Memory Testing Philosophy 11) Memtest86+ Test Algorithms 12) Individual Test Descriptions 13) Problem Reporting - Contact Information 14) Known Problems 15) Planned Features List 16) Change Log 17) Acknowledgments 1) Introduction =============== Memtest86+ is thorough, stand alone memory test for Intel/AMD x86 architecture systems. BIOS based memory tests are only a quick check and often miss failures that are detected by Memtest86+. For updates go to the Memtest86+ web page: https://github.com/anphsw/memtest86 2) Licensing ============ Memtest86+ is released under the terms of the Gnu Public License (GPL). Other than the provisions of the GPL there are no restrictions for use, private or commercial. See: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html for details. 3) Linux Installation ============================ Memtest86+ is a stand alone program and can be loaded from either a disk partition or from a floppy disk. To build Memtest86+: 1) Review the Makefile and adjust options as needed. 2) Type "make" This creates a file named "memtest.bin" which is a bootable image. This image file may be copied to a floppy disk or may be loaded from a disk partition via Lilo or Grub image from a hard disk partition. To test build in QEMU 1) Ensure QEMU is installed (apt-get install qemu) 2) run: qemu-system-i386 -smp 2 -m 256 -fda memtest.bin To disable mouse grabbing in QEMU window press CTRL+ALT To create a Memtest86+ bootdisk 1) Insert a blank write enabled floppy disk. 2) As root, Type "make install" To boot from a disk partition via Grub 1) Copy the image file to a permanent location (ie. /boot/memtest.bin). 2) Add an entry in the Grub config file (/boot/grub/menu.lst) to boot memtest86. Only the title and kernel fields need to be specified. The following is a sample Grub entry for booting Memtest86+: title Memtest86+ kernel (hd0,0)/memtest.bin To boot from a disk partition via Lilo 1) Copy the image file to a permanent location (ie. /boot/memtest.bin). 2) Add an entry in the lilo config file (usually /etc/lilo.conf) to boot memtest86. Only the image and label fields need to be specified. The following is a sample Lilo entry for booting Memtest86+: image = /boot/memtest.bin label = Memtest86+ 3) As root, type "lilo" If you encounter build problems a binary image has been included (precomp.bin). To create a boot-disk with this pre-built image do the following: 1) Insert a blank write enabled floppy disk. 2) Type "make install-precomp" 4) Serial Console ================= Memtest86+ can be used on PC's equipped with a serial port for the console. By default serial port console support is not enabled since it slows down testing. To activate it, add a console parameter on the memtest86+ command-line, like: "/boot/memtest86+.bin console=ttyS0,115200n8". 5) Online Commands ================== Memtest86+ has a limited number of online commands. Online commands provide control over caching, test selection, address range and error scrolling. A help bar is displayed at the bottom of the screen listing the available on-line commands. Command Description ESC Exits the test and does a warm restart via the BIOS. c Enters test configuration menu Menu options are: 1) Test selection 2) Address Range 3) Error Report Mode 4) CPU Selection Mode 5) Refresh Screen SP Set scroll lock (Stops scrolling of error messages) Note: Testing is stalled when the scroll lock is set and the scroll region is full. CR Clear scroll lock (Enables error message scrolling) 6) Error Information ====================== Memtest has three options for reporting errors. The default is an an error summary that displays the most relevant error information. The second option is reporting of individual errors. In BadRAM Patterns mode patterns are created for use with the Linux BadRAM feature. This slick feature allows Linux to avoid bad memory pages. Details about the BadRAM feature can be found at: http://home.zonnet.nl/vanrein/badram The error summary mode displays the following information: Error Confidence Value: A value that indicates the validity of the errors being reported with larger values indicating greater validity. There is a high probability that all errors reported are valid regardless of this value. However, when this value exceeds 100 it is nearly impossible that the reported errors will be invalid. Lowest Error Address: The lowest address that where an error has been reported. Highest Error Address: The highest address that where an error has been reported. Bits in Error Mask: A mask of all bits that have been in error (hexadecimal). Bits in Error: Total bit in error for all error instances and the min, max and average bit in error of each individual occurrence. Max Contiguous Errors: The maximum of contiguous addresses with errors. ECC Correctable Errors: The number of errors that have been corrected by ECC hardware. Test Errors: On the right hand side of the screen the number of errors for each test are displayed. For individual errors the following information is displayed when a memory error is detected. An error message is only displayed for errors with a different address or failing bit pattern. All displayed values are in hexadecimal. Tst: Test number Failing Address: Failing memory address Good: Expected data pattern Bad: Failing data pattern Err-Bits: Exclusive or of good and bad data (this shows the position of the failing bit(s)) Count: Number of consecutive errors with the same address and failing bits CPU: CPU that detected the error In BadRAM Patterns mode, Lines are printed in a form badram=F1,M1,F2,M2. In each F/M pair, the F represents a fault address, and the corresponding M is a bitmask for that address. These patterns state that faults have occurred in addresses that equal F on all "1" bits in M. Such a pattern may capture more errors that actually exist, but at least all the errors are captured. These patterns have been designed to capture regular patterns of errors caused by the hardware structure in a terse syntax. The BadRAM patterns are `grown' increment-ally rather than `designed' from an overview of all errors. The number of pairs is constrained to five for a number of practical reasons. As a result, handcrafting patterns from the output in address printing mode may, in exceptional cases, yield better results. 7) Trouble-shooting Memory Errors ================================ Please be aware that not all errors reported by Memtest86+ are due to bad memory. The test implicitly tests the CPU, L1 and L2 caches as well as the motherboard. It is impossible for the test to determine what causes the failure to occur. Most failures will be due to a problem with memory. When it is not, the only option is to replace parts until the failure is corrected. Once a memory error has been detected, determining the failing module is not a clear cut procedure. With the large number of motherboard vendors and possible combinations of simm slots it would be difficult if not impossible to assemble complete information about how a particular error would map to a failing memory module. However, there are steps that may be taken to determine the failing module. Here are three techniques that you may wish to use: 1) Removing modules This is simplest method for isolating a failing modules, but may only be employed when one or more modules can be removed from the system. By selectively removing modules from the system and then running the test you will be able to find the bad module(s). Be sure to note exactly which modules are in the system when the test passes and when the test fails. 2) Rotating modules When none of the modules can be removed then you may wish to rotate modules to find the failing one. This technique can only be used if there are three or more modules in the system. Change the location of two modules at a time. For example put the module from slot 1 into slot 2 and put the module from slot 2 in slot 1. Run the test and if either the failing bit or address changes then you know that the failing module is one of the ones just moved. By using several combinations of module movement you should be able to determine which module is failing. 3) Replacing modules If you are unable to use either of the previous techniques then you are left to selective replacement of modules to find the failure. 4) Avoiding allocation The printing mode for BadRAM patterns is intended to construct boot time parameters for a Linux kernel that is compiled with BadRAM support. This work-around makes it possible for Linux to reliably run on defective RAM. For more information on BadRAM support for Linux, sail to http://home.zonnet.nl/vanrein/badram Sometimes memory errors show up due to component incompatibility. A memory module may work fine in one system and not in another. This is not uncommon and is a source of confusion. The components are not necessarily bad but certain combinations may need to be avoided. I am often asked about the reliability of errors reported by Mestest86. In the vast majority of cases errors reported by the test are valid. There are some systems that cause Memtest86+ to be confused about the size of memory and it will try to test non-existent memory. This will cause a large number of consecutive addresses to be reported as bad and generally there will be many bits in error. If you have a relatively small number of failing addresses and only one or two bits in error you can be certain that the errors are valid. Also intermittent errors are always valid. All valid memory errors should be corrected. It is possible that a particular error will never show up in normal operation. However, operating with marginal memory is risky and can result in data loss and even disk corruption. You can be sure that Murphy will get you if you know about a memory error and ignore it. Memtest86+ can not diagnose many types of PC failures. For example a faulty CPU that causes Windows to crash will most likely just cause Memtest86+ to crash in the same way. 8) Execution Time ================== The time required for a complete pass of Memtest86+ will vary greatly depending on CPU speed, memory speed and memory size. Memtest86+ executes indefinitely. The pass counter increments each time that all of the selected tests have been run. Generally a single pass is sufficient to catch all but the most obscure errors. However, for complete confidence when intermittent errors are suspected testing for a longer period is advised. 9) Memory Testing Philosophy ============================= There are many good approaches for testing memory. However, many tests simply throw some patterns at memory without much thought or knowledge of memory architecture or how errors can best be detected. This works fine for hard memory failures but does little to find intermittent errors. BIOS based memory tests are useless for finding intermittent memory errors. Memory chips consist of a large array of tightly packed memory cells, one for each bit of data. The vast majority of the intermittent failures are a result of interaction between these memory cells. Often writing a memory cell can cause one of the adjacent cells to be written with the same data. An effective memory test attempts to test for this condition. Therefore, an ideal strategy for testing memory would be the following: 1) write a cell with a zero 2) write all of the adjacent cells with a one, one or more times 3) check that the first cell still has a zero It should be obvious that this strategy requires an exact knowledge of how the memory cells are laid out on the chip. In addition there is a never ending number of possible chip layouts for different chip types and manufacturers making this strategy impractical. However, there are testing algorithms that can approximate this ideal strategy. 11) Memtest86+ Test Algorithms ============================= Memtest86+ uses two algorithms that provide a reasonable approximation of the ideal test strategy above. The first of these strategies is called moving inversions. The moving inversion test works as follows: 1) Fill memory with a pattern 2) Starting at the lowest address 2a check that the pattern has not changed 2b write the patterns complement 2c increment the address repeat 2a - 2c 3) Starting at the highest address 3a check that the pattern has not changed 3b write the patterns complement 3c decrement the address repeat 3a - 3c This algorithm is a good approximation of an ideal memory test but there are some limitations. Most high density chips today store data 4 to 16 bits wide. With chips that are more than one bit wide it is impossible to selectively read or write just one bit. This means that we cannot guarantee that all adjacent cells have been tested for interaction. In this case the best we can do is to use some patterns to insure that all adjacent cells have at least been written with all possible one and zero combinations. It can also be seen that caching, buffering and out of order execution will interfere with the moving inversions algorithm and make less effective. It is possible to turn off cache but the memory buffering in new high performance chips can not be disabled. To address this limitation a new algorithm I call Modulo-X was created. This algorithm is not affected by cache or buffering. The algorithm works as follows: 1) For starting offsets of 0 - 20 do 1a write every 20th location with a pattern 1b write all other locations with the patterns complement repeat 1b one or more times 1c check every 20th location for the pattern This algorithm accomplishes nearly the same level of adjacency testing as moving inversions but is not affected by caching or buffering. Since separate write passes (1a, 1b) and the read pass (1c) are done for all of memory we can be assured that all of the buffers and cache have been flushed between passes. The selection of 20 as the stride size was somewhat arbitrary. Larger strides may be more effective but would take longer to execute. The choice of 20 seemed to be a reasonable compromise between speed and thoroughness. 11) Individual Test Descriptions ================================ Memtest86+ executes a series of numbered test sections to check for errors. These test sections consist of a combination of test algorithm, data pattern and caching. The execution order for these tests were arranged so that errors will be detected as rapidly as possible. A description of each of the test sections follows: Test 0 [Address test, walking ones, no cache] Tests all address bits in all memory banks by using a walking ones address pattern. Errors from this test are not used to calculate BadRAM patterns. Test 1 [Address test, own address Sequential] Each address is written with its own address and then is checked for consistency. In theory previous tests should have caught any memory addressing problems. This test should catch any addressing errors that somehow were not previously detected. This test is done sequentially with each available CPU. Test 2 [Address test, own address Parallel] Same as test 1 but the testing is done in parallel using all CPUs using overlapping addresses. Test 3 [Moving inversions, ones&zeros Sequential] This test uses the moving inversions algorithm with patterns of all ones and zeros. Cache is enabled even though it interferes to some degree with the test algorithm. With cache enabled this test does not take long and should quickly find all "hard" errors and some more subtle errors. This test is done sequentially with each available CPU. Test 4 [Moving inversions, ones&zeros Parallel] Same as test 3 but the testing is done in parallel using all CPUs. Test 5 [Moving inversions, 8 bit pat] This is the same as test 4 but uses a 8 bit wide pattern of "walking" ones and zeros. This test will better detect subtle errors in "wide" memory chips. A total of 20 data patterns are used. Test 6 [Moving inversions, random pattern] Test 6 uses the same algorithm as test 4 but the data pattern is a random number and it's complement. This test is particularly effective in finding difficult to detect data sensitive errors. The random number sequence is different with each pass so multiple passes increase effectiveness. Test 7 [Block move, 64 moves] This test stresses memory by using block move (movsl) instructions and is based on Robert Redelmeier's burnBX test. Memory is initialized with shifting patterns that are inverted every 8 bytes. Then 4MB blocks of memory are moved around using the movsl instruction. After the moves are completed the data patterns are checked. Because the data is checked only after the memory moves are completed it is not possible to know where the error occurred. The addresses reported are only for where the bad pattern was found. Since the moves are constrained to a 8MB segment of memory the failing address will always be lest than 8MB away from the reported address. Errors from this test are not used to calculate BadRAM patterns. Test 8 [Moving inversions, 32 bit pat] This is a variation of the moving inversions algorithm that shifts the data pattern left one bit for each successive address. The starting bit position is shifted left for each pass. To use all possible data patterns 32 passes are required. This test is quite effective at detecting data sensitive errors but the execution time is long. Test 9 [Random number sequence] This test writes a series of random numbers into memory. By resetting the seed for the random number the same sequence of number can be created for a reference. The initial pattern is checked and then complemented and checked again on the next pass. However, unlike the moving inversions test writing and checking can only be done in the forward direction. Test 10 [Modulo 20, random pattern] Using the Modulo-X algorithm should uncover errors that are not detected by moving inversions due to cache and buffering interference with the the algorithm. A 32 bit random pattern is used. Test 11 [Bit fade test, 2 patterns] The bit fade test initializes all of memory with a pattern and then sleeps for 5 minutes. Then memory is examined to see if any memory bits have changed. All ones and all zero patterns are used. 12) Problem Reporting - Contact Information =========================================== Due to the growing popularity of Memtest86+ (more than 200,000 downloads per month) I have been inundated by, questions, feedback, problem reports and requests for enhancements. I simply do not have time to respond to ANY Memtest86+ emails. Bug reports and suggestions are welcome but will typically not be responded to. *** NOTE: *** The Keyword MEM86 must appear in the subject of all emails or the message will be automaticly deleted before it gets to me. This thanks to spam and viruses! Problems/Bugs: Before submitting a problem report please check the Known Problems section to see if this problem has already been reported. Be sure to include the version number and also any details that may be relevant. https://github.com/anphsw/memtest86/issues With some PC's Memtest86+ will just die with no hints as to what went wrong. Without any details it is impossible to fix these failures. Fixing these problems will require debugging on your part. There is no point in reporting these failures unless you have a Linux system and would be willing to debug the failure. Enhancements: If you would like to request an enhancement please see if is already on the Planned Features List before sending your request. All requests will be considered, but not all can be implemented. If you are be interested in contributing code please contact me so that the integration can be co-ordinated. https://github.com/anphsw/memtest86/issues Questions: Unfortunately, I do not have time to respond to any questions or provide assistance with troubleshooting problems. Please read the Troubleshooting and Known Problems sections for assistance with problems. These sections have the answers for the questions that I have answers to. If there is not an answer for your problem in these sections it is probably not something I can help you with. 15) Known Problems ================== Sometimes when booting from a floppy disk the following messages scroll up on the screen: X:8000 AX:0212 BX:8600 CX:0201 DX:0000 This the BIOS reporting floppy disk read errors. Either re-write or toss the floppy disk. Memtest86+ can not diagnose many types of PC failures. For example a faulty CPU that causes Windows to crash will most likely just cause Memtest86+ to crash in the same way. There have been numerous reports of errors in only the block move test. Often the memory works in a different system or the vendor insists that it is good. In these cases the memory is not necessarily bad but is not able to operate reliably high speeds. Sometimes more conservative memory timings on the motherboard will correct these errors. In other cases the only option is to replace the memory with better quality, higher speed memory. Don't buy cheap memory and expect it to work at full speed. Memtest86+ supports all types of memory. If fact the test has absolutely no knowledge of the memory type nor does it need to. This not a problem or bug but is listed here due to the many questions I get about this issue. Changes in the compiler and loader have caused problems with Memtest86+ resulting in both build failures and errors in execution. A binary image (precomp.bin) of the test is included and may be used if problems are encountered. 15) Planned Features List ========================= This is a list of enhancements planned for future releases of Memtest86+. There is no timetable for when these will be implemented. - Testing in 64 bit mode with 64 data patterns - Support for reporting ECC errors was removed in the 4.0 release. A simplified implementation of ECC reporting is planned for a future release. 16) Change Log ============== See changelog file for the full version history. 17) Acknowledgments =================== Memtest86+ was developed by Chris Brady with the resources and assistance listed below: - The initial versions of the source files bootsect.S, setup.S, head.S and build.c are from the Linux 1.2.1 kernel and have been heavily modified. - Doug Sisk provided code to support a console connected via a serial port. - Code to create BadRAM patterns was provided by Rick van Rein. - Tests 5 and 8 are based on Robert Redelmeier's burnBX test. - Screen buffer code was provided by Jani Averbach. - Eric Biederman provided all of the feature content for version 3.0 plus many bugfixes and significant code cleanup. - Major enhancements to hardware detection and reporting in version 3.2, 3.3 pnd 3.4 rovided by Samuel Demeulemeester (from Memtest86+ v1.11, v1.60 and v1.70).