Computer memory or RAM is the short term storage memory that is used by various programs to store and retrieve data quickly. If you want to be able to launch many programs at once, you have to install larger RAM banks. If these memory banks develop physical defects then we end up having many problems in the operating system itself. We may see frequent program crashes, loss of information stored in the programs, failure to write the data on the hard drives and even the operating system crashes.
If you are also experiencing frequent program crashes in your Windows PC, then you can use a simple MemTest utility to test your installed RAM. This is different from MemTest86 that we have published about before. MemTest86 is run from a bootable USB/CD drive, while MemTest is a Windows GUI application.
MemTest can be run from your Windows PC. You have to select how much RAM you are going to test – whether you are going to test all the available unused RAM or you are going to test only a smaller portion of the RAM. After this, we can click on the Start Testing button to initiate the test.
During the testing, it will store data and then retrieve it. If there is mismatch between the stored and retrieved data then we can assume there is some problem with the installed RAM memory.
After the test has been run for a good 30 minutes, you can click on the Stop Testing button to stop it. It does not stop on its own. You have to manually stop the test. If it encounters any errors, then it will report them to you.
One disadvantage of MemTest is that it cannot test the entire RAM installed on your PC. This is because some of the RAM is already being used by the operating system and other applications. For example, if your PC has 4 GB RAM installed and around 1.5 GB of this RAM is being used by Windows, then only remaining 2.5 GB can be tested by MemTest.
You can download MemTest from https://hcidesign.com/memtest/.