There will come a time when you think your RAM is playing up or perhaps it is new and you want to make sure everything is all OK before you continue to setup your Custom PC. Testing your RAM can help diagnose Operating system lockups, crashes, strange behaviour and explain why your CPU will not hit the magic 4GHz when overclocking.

Thankfully it is very easy to test your RAM, and here is how;

1 – Download a program called Memtest86 available from www.memtest.org.

2 – We are going to use a CD version of the program as everyone has a CD drive so make sure you download the latest “Pre Compiled Bootable ISO”. It does not matter whether you go for the .gz or .zip version, just make sure you have a program that will open .gz or .zip files. Microsoft Windows 7 has a zip reader built in, so we recommend you download the .zip version for ease of use.

3 – Once you have your file, unzip it and you should be left with a file that looks like MTXXX.iso. The 3 X’s represent the version number of the program. For example if you have downloaded version 4.2 then your file will look like mt420.iso.

4 – The mt420.iso is what is known as an image file, at this stage this is no good to us, we need it on a CD. Use your favourite CD/DVD burning software to burn the file as an image. If you are using Windows 7 then again it has its own built in software for doing this, simply double click the MTXXX.iso file and it will open the Windows Disk Image Burner. Insert your blank CD and click Burn.

If you have installed another CD/DVD burning software and want to use the built in Windows Disk Image Burner then right click your MTXXX.iso file and select open with and then Windows Disk Image Burner.

5 – After a few minutes your CD will finish burning, you now have a bootable Memtest86+ disk!

6 – Reboot your PC, whilst making sure your bootable Memtest86+ disk is in your CD/DVD Drive, and boot from it. It will immediately load up with Memtest86+.

You will see a blue screen with lots of numbers. The bits you are interested in are;

Time – How long memtest has been running.
Pass – How many full tests have been carried out.
Errors – How many errors have been found.

To correctly test your RAM you need to let this test run for at least 24 hours, ideally 48 if possible. If your RAM is all OK, not much will change. The timer and the number of passes will go up but the reported fault number will stay at 0.

If your RAM is faulty, your error number will be 1 or greater, and you will be presented with red horizontal strips of information along the bottom.

If your test passes after 24/48 hours, switch the PC off for a few hours, ideally all day/overnight, and then run the test again for a further 24 hours, if nothing has been found, congratulations, your RAM in your Custom PC is perfect.

Remember, you only need one error to appear and that is enough to deem it faulty.