Windows Vista: How to Scan / Test your RAM or Memory with Windows Vista Memory Diagnostic Tool
There may be instances where your computers RAM or memory starts giving you problems and you want to know the stability of your RAM. Windows Vista comes with a built in memory diagnostic tool that can help scan your RAM or memory. If you are overclocking or tweaking your RAM settings in BIOS then you can use this tool to do RAM or memory stability check.
There are two ways you can access this tool:
- Accessing the Memory Diagnostic Tool from boot menu
- Accessing the Memory Diagnostic tool within Window Vista
How to access Memory Diagnostic Tool from boot menu
1. Power up your computer and keep pressing F8 key until you see the Boot menu option
2. Now use your TAB key to select memory diagnostic tool in the bottom of the screen.
This method is applicable if your computer has only Windows Vista installed. If you have a dual boot system then you would be automatically presented the boot menu once you power up your computer. Once you are presented with Boot menu you can access the memory diagnostic tool by pressing F8 key.
How to access Memory Diagnostic Tool from within Windows Vista
1. Go to Control Panel by Start Menu > Settings > Control Panel
2. In the Control Panel select the “Administrative Tools”
3. Select the Memory Diagnostic Tool from Administrative Tools
4. The Memory Diagnostic Tool will offer two options to select. You can choose immediate restart of your computer or schedule to run the memory diagnostic tool to run at next reboot.
What are the various options that Memory Diagnostic Tool provides?
The memory diagnostic tool provides three options to choose from:
- Basic: MATS+, INVC, and SCHCKR (cache enabled)
- Standard: LRAND, Stride6 (cache enabled), CHCKR3, WMATS+, and WINVC
- Extended: LRAND, Stride6 (cache enabled), CHCKR3, WMATS+, and WINVC, ERAND, Stride6 (cache disabled), and CHCKR8
By default the memory diagnostic tool uses the Basic option and 2 passes to choose.
After the tests are completed the resulted would be presented to you after booting into Vista.
Memory Diagnostic Tool in Action:
Click the pics below to enlarge
Update Nov 4, 2007:
You can use this tool with Windows XP as well. Download this tool from here and use it in Windows XP.
Though there are lot of freeware utilities available to these tests but we should appreciate the fact that Microsoft included this tool with Windows Vista
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Nice tip Shiva bhai. Even though i have been using Vista for sometime, i never used this feature.
Thanks for this tip.
btw do you know any tool that does this on winXp ?
Good tip man, thanks! I’ll try this out on my computer soon. Keep it up.
Madhur-
You are welcome
Alfred-
I have updated the post to now you can use this tool in windows xp as well.
Aseem-
Try and let me know.
[...] How to Scan your RAM with Windows Vista Memory Diagnostic Tool – Shivaranjan [...]
How I turn off?? I turned on but every time on pc start it star the memory test tool.
I did this test because my pc was giving me problems and it said i had a hardware problem i tired each of my two sticks individually just to make sure and said the same on both. this is a new build with all new hardware. im just curious if it is just the RAM or does the test check for other things too.
I tried to do this test, using the settings you mentioned, but each time it gets to 20% of the scan, my laptops shutsdown (no restart, no error message, it just closes)
Do you have any idea why this happens, or what i should do?
Ralu… One year later and I have the same problem as you: memory test does not complete somewhere around 20 to 60% then the laptop just turns off dead. Now I have noticed that my laptop only reports 2gb of ram instead of the 4gb I have installed, Both in the system properties and in the BIOS. maybe one stick of ram is dead?