MemTest86

Last updated

MemTest86
Original author(s) Chris Brady
Developer(s) PassMark Software
Initial release1994;30 years ago (1994) [1]
Stable release
11.1 (Build 1000) [2]   OOjs UI icon edit-ltr-progressive.svg / 31 October 2024
Written inC, assembly language
Available in12 languages [3]
List of languages
English, French, German, Czech, Polish, Russian, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Catalan, Japanese, Chinese
Type Utility
License freeware, proprietary license
Website www.memtest86.com   OOjs UI icon edit-ltr-progressive.svg
Memtest86+
Developer(s) Martin Whitaker, Sam Demeulemeester
Initial release2004;20 years ago (2004) [4]
Stable release
7.20 [5]   OOjs UI icon edit-ltr-progressive.svg / 11 November 2024
Repository
Written inC, assembly language
Available inEnglish
Type Utility
License GNU General Public License, version 2.0
Website www.memtest.org   OOjs UI icon edit-ltr-progressive.svg

MemTest86 and Memtest86+ are memory test software programs designed to test and stress test an x86 architecture computer's random-access memory (RAM) for errors, by writing test patterns to most memory addresses, reading back the data, and comparing for errors. [6] Each tries to verify that the RAM will accept and correctly retain arbitrary patterns of data written to it, that there are no errors where different bits of memory interact, and that there are no conflicts between memory addresses.

Contents

MemTest86

History

MemTest86 was developed by Chris Brady in 1994. [1] It was written in C and x86 assembly, and for all BIOS versions, was released under the GNU General Public License (GPL). The bootloading code was originally derived from Linux 1.2.1. [7] The program is compiled as position-independent code so as to be able to move itself around and test all the memory regions. [8] The proprietary PassMark version does not have this ability. [9]

BadRAM patch

Starting from MemTest86 2.3, the program can output a list of bad RAM regions in the format expected by the BadRAM patch for the Linux kernel. [10] GRUB2 is able to supply this same information to an unpatched kernel, making the BadRAM patch unnecessary. [11] Microsoft Windows has a similar feature (badmemorylist/badmemoryaccess), but manual conversion is required for setting it up.[ citation needed ]

PassMark purchase

In February 2013, the original MemTest86 was sold to PassMark. The BIOS version was updated under GPL until version 4.3.7.

MemTest86 Version 5.0 (3 December 2013) was rewritten for UEFI booting (initially with fallback to BIOS booting on non-UEFI systems), allowing for secure boot approval and mouse support. All UEFI versions are released under a proprietary freeware license. Version 6.0 (13 Feb 2015) adds support for DDR4 RAM, and a row-hammer test based on research from Yoongu Kim, et al.. [1] [10] [12] Version 8.0 removed backward compatibility with non-UEFI systems, requiring a separate download of the older version 4.3.7. [10]

Memtest86+

History

After MemTest86 remained at version 3.0 (2002 release) for two years, Samuel Demeulemeester created the Memtest86+ fork to add support for newer CPUs and chipsets.

From version 1.60, the program can output a list of bad RAM regions in the format expected by the BadRAM patch for the Linux kernel [13] (similar to MemTest86 2.3).

The BIOS-based line of Memtest86+ entered a stall after the release of version 5.01 (September 2013). In April 2020, the final BIOS-based version, 5.31 beta, was released with a short changelog claiming "many fixes". [14] [15]

In May 2020, Martin Whitaker forked Memtest86+ 5.31 into PCMemTest, rewriting it for UEFI support, DDR4 and DDR5 RAM, and supporting all current AMD and Intel chipsets and CPUs. In October 2022, this branch merged back, becoming Memtest86+ 6.0. [16] [17]

Adoption

Memtest86+ is included, optionally or by default, in many Linux distributions, including Debian, [18] the derived Ubuntu, and Arch Linux. [19] Ubuntu includes it as part of the default installation if the machine is booting in BIOS mode, showing it in the GRUB OS-select menu; [20] the version 6.0, UEFI-capable, is available from Ubuntu 23.04 Lunar Lobster. [21] Whilst Memtest86+ version 5.01 required significant patching by distributions to keep the 2013 code base functional, [22] the 6.0 release did not require such extensive patching. [23]

Common features

Detections of faulty memory are displayed prominently. The application shows which memory locations failed and which patterns made them fail. Memtest86+ memory errors.png
Detections of faulty memory are displayed prominently. The application shows which memory locations failed and which patterns made them fail.

There are two development streams of MemTest86(+). The original is simply known as MemTest86. The other, known as Memtest86+, is a development fork of the original MemTest86. Their on-screen appearance and functionality were almost identical until MemTest86 4.3 and Memtest86+ 5.0. [1]

Version 5.0 of MemTest86 added a mouse-driven graphical user interface (GUI) and UEFI support; the latter was added by Memtest86+ from version 6.0.[ citation needed ]

These programs work with nearly all PC-compatible computers from 80386- and 80486-based systems to the latest systems with 64-bit processors. Each new release adds support for newer processors and chipsets. [10] [13]

MemTest86(+) is designed to run as a stand-alone, self-contained program from a bootable USB flash drive, CD-ROM, floppy disk, or from a suitable boot manager without an operating system present. [24] This is because the program must directly control the hardware being tested and leave as much of the RAM space as possible for examination.

MemTest86(+)'s testing is very comprehensive, so it can find otherwise hidden problems on machines that appear to work normally. [24] [25] With many chipsets, MemTest86 allows counting of failures even in error-correcting ECC DRAM (without special handling, error correcting memory circuits can mask problems with the underlying memory chips).

Some errors manifest intermittently or depend on the precise bits being stored, and do not occur on each pass; such errors may be revealed by running many passes over an extended period. Some tests use different data each pass to reveal data-dependent errors. [26]

Both versions now support current multi-core processors, the corresponding chipsets, and UEFI. [4] [27]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">BIOS</span> Firmware for hardware initialization and OS runtime services

In computing, BIOS is firmware used to provide runtime services for operating systems and programs and to perform hardware initialization during the booting process. The firmware comes pre-installed on the computer's motherboard.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Debian</span> Linux distribution based on free and open-source software

Debian, also known as Debian GNU/Linux, is a free and open source Linux distribution, developed by the Debian Project, which was established by Ian Murdock in August 1993. Debian is the basis for many other distributions, such as Ubuntu, Linux Mint, Tails, Proxmox, Kali Linux, Pardus, TrueNAS SCALE, and Astra Linux.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Knoppix</span> Linux operating system

Knoppix, stylized KNOPPIX, is an operating system based on Debian designed to be run directly from a CD or DVD or a USB flash drive. It was first released in 2000 by German Linux consultant Klaus Knopper, and was one of the first popular live distributions. Knoppix is loaded from the removable medium and decompressed into a RAM drive. The decompression is transparent and on-the-fly.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">GNU GRUB</span> Boot loader package

GNU GRUB is a boot loader package from the GNU Project. GRUB is the reference implementation of the Free Software Foundation's Multiboot Specification, which provides a user the choice to boot one of multiple operating systems installed on a computer or select a specific kernel configuration available on a particular operating system's partitions.

In computing, Physical Address Extension (PAE), sometimes referred to as Page Address Extension, is a memory management feature for the x86 architecture. PAE was first introduced by Intel in the Pentium Pro, and later by AMD in the Athlon processor. It defines a page table hierarchy of three levels (instead of two), with table entries of 64 bits each instead of 32, allowing these CPUs to directly access a physical address space larger than 4 gigabytes (232 bytes).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kanotix</span> Linux distribution

Kanotix, also referred to as KANOTIX, is an operating system based on Debian, with advanced hardware detection. It can run from an optical disc drive or other media i.e. USB-stick without using a hard disk drive.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">UEFI</span> Technical specification for firmware architecture

Unified Extensible Firmware Interface is a specification for the firmware architecture of a computing platform. When a computer is powered on, the UEFI-implementation is typically the first that runs, before starting the operating system. Examples include AMI Aptio, Phoenix SecureCore, TianoCore EDK II, InsydeH2O.

Puppy Linux is a family of light-weight Linux distributions that focus on ease of use and minimal memory footprint. The entire system can be run from random-access memory (RAM) with current versions generally taking up about 600 MB (64-bit), 300 MB (32-bit), allowing the boot medium to be removed after the operating system has started. Applications such as AbiWord, Gnumeric and MPlayer are included, along with a choice of lightweight web browsers and a utility for downloading other packages. The distribution was originally developed by Barry Kauler and other members of the community, until Kauler retired in 2013. The tool Woof can build a Puppy Linux distribution from the binary packages of other Linux distributions.

coreboot Open-source computer firmware

coreboot, formerly known as LinuxBIOS, is a software project aimed at replacing proprietary firmware found in most computers with a lightweight firmware designed to perform only the minimum number of tasks necessary to load and run a modern 32-bit or 64-bit operating system.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Video BIOS</span>

Video BIOS is the BIOS of a graphics card in a computer. It initializes the graphics card at the computer's boot time. It also implements INT 10h interrupt and VESA BIOS Extensions (VBE) for basic text and videomode output before a specific video driver is loaded. In UEFI 2.x systems, the INT 10h and the VBE are replaced by the UEFI GOP.

In Linux systems, initrd is a scheme for loading a temporary root file system into memory, to be used as part of the Linux startup process. initrd and initramfs refer to two different methods of achieving this. Both are commonly used to make preparations before the real root file system can be mounted.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">EFI system partition</span> Partition used by Unified Extensible Firmware Interface

The EFIsystem partition or ESP is a partition on a data storage device that is used by computers that have the Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI). When a computer is booted, UEFI firmware loads files stored on the ESP to start operating systems and various utilities.

In the context of free and open-source software, proprietary software only available as a binary executable is referred to as a blob or binary blob. The term usually refers to a device driver module loaded into the kernel of an open-source operating system, and is sometimes also applied to code running outside the kernel, such as system firmware images, microcode updates, or userland programs. The term blob was first used in database management systems to describe a collection of binary data stored as a single entity.

nouveau (software) Open source software driver for Nvidia GPU

nouveau is a free and open-source graphics device driver for Nvidia video cards and the Tegra family of SoCs written by independent software engineers, with minor help from Nvidia employees.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wubi (software)</span> Ubuntu Linux installer for Windows

Wubi is a free software Ubuntu installer, that was the official Windows-based software, from 2008 until 2013, to install Ubuntu from within Windows, to a single file within an existing Windows partition.

The Linux booting process involves multiple stages and is in many ways similar to the BSD and other Unix-style boot processes, from which it derives. Although the Linux booting process depends very much on the computer architecture, those architectures share similar stages and software components, including system startup, bootloader execution, loading and startup of a Linux kernel image, and execution of various startup scripts and daemons. Those are grouped into 4 steps: system startup, bootloader stage, kernel stage, and init process.

Long-term support (LTS) is a product lifecycle management policy in which a stable release of computer software is maintained for a longer period of time than the standard edition. The term is typically reserved for open-source software, where it describes a software edition that is supported for months or years longer than the software's standard edition.

rEFInd Boot manager for UEFI systems

rEFInd is a boot manager for UEFI and EFI-based machines. It can be used to boot multiple operating systems that are installed on a single non-volatile device. It also provides a way to launch UEFI applications.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 "MemTest86 History". MemTest86.com. Archived from the original on 11 May 2019.
  2. ↑ "MemTest86 What's New?".
  3. ↑ "MemTest86 Feature Comparison". MemTest86.com. Retrieved 22 August 2024.
  4. 1 2 "Memtest86+ History". Memtest.org.
  5. ↑ "Release 7.20". 11 November 2024. Retrieved 26 November 2024.
  6. ↑ "MemTest86 Technical Information". MemTest86.com. PassMark Software. Retrieved 22 October 2015.
  7. ↑ "bootsect.S - chromiumos/third_party/memtest - Git at Google". ChromiumOS Source. Copyright (C) 1991, 1992 Linus Torvalds 1-Jan-96 Modified by Chris Brady
  8. ↑ "README.build-process - chromiumos/third_party/memtest - Git at Google". chromium.googlesource.com.
  9. ↑ "MemTest86 – Known Issues". MemTest86.com. Retrieved 31 October 2023. MemTest86 cannot remap itself to different portions of memory in order to run tests in the section of memory it was occupying.
  10. 1 2 3 4 "What's New?". MemTest86. Retrieved 6 September 2024.
  11. ↑ "GNU GRUB Manual 1.99 § Badram".
  12. ↑ Kim, Yoongu; Daly, Ross; Kim, Jeremie; Fallin, Chris; Lee, Ji Hye; Lee, Donghyuk; Wilkerson, Chris; Lai, Konrad; Mutlu, Onur (8 July 2014). "Flipping Bits in Memory Without Accessing Them: An Experimental Study of DRAM Disturbance Errors" (PDF). Carnegie Mellon University . Retrieved 7 April 2015.
  13. 1 2 "Memtest86+ - Advanced Memory Diagnostic Tool". MemTest.org.
  14. ↑ "Memtest86+ Archives". Memtest86+.
  15. ↑ "728766 – sys-apps/memtest86+-5.31b version bump". Bugs.Gentoo.org.
  16. ↑ Klotz, Aaron (24 October 2022). "Memtest86+ Is Back! New Version Released After 9 Years". Tom's Hardware. Retrieved 25 October 2022.
  17. ↑ "memtest86+ v6.0 Released As Rewritten Open-Source RAM Tester". Phoronix.com. Retrieved 25 October 2022.
  18. ↑ "Package: memtest86+". Debian Packages. Retrieved 15 January 2024.
  19. ↑ "Arch Linux - memtest86+ 5.01-3 (any)" . Retrieved 7 April 2019.
  20. ↑ "MemoryTest". Ubuntu Help Wiki. Retrieved 7 April 2019. Hold down Shift to bring up the GRUB menu. Use the arrow keys to move to the entry labeled Ubuntu, memtest86+
  21. ↑ "Memtest86+ 6.10-4 (amd64 binary) in Ubuntu Lunar". Ubuntu Launchpad. Retrieved 16 January 2024.
  22. ↑ "Patch tracker: memtest86+". Debian Sources. Retrieved 20 September 2023.
  23. ↑ "Patch tracker: memtest86+". Debian Sources. Retrieved 20 September 2023.
  24. 1 2 Fisher, Tim (6 February 2018). "MemTest86 v7.5 Free Memory Testing Tool Review". Lifewire . Dotdash . Retrieved 24 February 2018.
  25. ↑ "MemTest86 Technical Information: Algorithms". MemTest86.com. PassMark Software. Retrieved 1 November 2014.
  26. ↑ "MemTest86 Technical Information: Detailed Descriptions". MemTest86.com. PassMark Software. Retrieved 22 October 2015.
  27. ↑ "MemTest86 Support". MemTest86.com.
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