The first thing to check is the area highlighted in the red box. This tells you the amount of RAM your system has (1 GB in the example) and the throughput (40744 MB/s). This is a good test to see if your memory DIMMs are slotted in properly with your new computer. e.g. If you have 2x 8GB sticks of RAM, but one of your RAM is not slotted in properly, you’d only see 4 GB of Memory in total, and your your throughput will be halved of what it should be.
In the left top corner (highlighted in magenta), memtest86+ is showing the current test memtest86+ that’s running now. Memory RAMs have different ways of showing up, and memtest86+ is going to brute force through all the test across all your memory to make sure everything is running correctly. In truth this section is only relevant to the geeks, but some of you may find this screen strangely hypnotic.
The most important bits are really the Pass/Errors columns (sky blue box). For all intents and purposes the Pass column need to be greater than 0 and the errors are always 0. My personal preference is to run through all the tests 3 times to make sure everything passes with flying colours. To do this I just run memtest86+, leave it running overnight and check the screens again the following morning.
To finish the test, either power down the computer, or press the ESC key on the keyboard. And this is how you can test your system for defects. Now knowing your system is fully capable of decoding the bits, you should rest your feet and enjoy the bliss of music played back on your Snakeoil PC!
We’d like to hear from you! Please feel free to comment below or better yet, submit your results in the forum poll and let us know if your PC is fine, or suffering issues.
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