This darn Dell...

[Maxxarcade]

Just got a gig of registered PC133 for this Poweredge 500SC that I need for work, and I discovered that there is something wrong with the board causing errors in Memtest86. It even does it with the original factory RAM, and the stuff I just bought seems to be fine in a Poweredge 1400.

It keeps throwing up errors for the last 200KB or so of memory. Like with 1024MB, it gives errors at 1023.8MB. It will do it regardless of the amount of ram is installed and what slots it is in.

Do I have a chipset problem, or is Memtest86 v3.3 just BSing me?

[gg1978]

Re: This darn Dell...

I doubt there's an actual problem.. I think it has to do with how the BIOS allocates the memory.. You might try memtest86+.. I know older versions of memtest86 didn't work with AMD64 at all.. You also might try going into the menu, and having it probe instead of autodetecting the memory in memtest86..

[Rainbow]

Re: This darn Dell...

Upgrade to the latest BIOS. And try GoldMemory instead of memtest.

[Maxxarcade]

Re: This darn Dell...

I did update to latest BIOS, but I'll try the other program and see what happens.

I wisk I could edit the BIOS to run the cooling fan at full speed instead of running it slow and making the annoying hum.

Anyone else have a PE 500SC that can try Memtest86 on it? I don't want to press this system into service as a company VPN/Router/Firewall if it is going to fail soon.

[bgavin]

Re: This darn Dell...

Memtest fails 100% on every ABit KG7 board I have installed, yet none of the systems have stability problems. The author acknowledges that certain AMD systems fail specific tests, and the KG7 is apparently one of them. You might have the same problem.

As noted above, try another memory tester.

[Maxxarcade]

Re: This darn Dell...

What I can't figure out, is the 1400 has the same ServerWorks chipset, and doesn't fail any tests. They are both P3 based systems.

I just picked up several more Dell systems- 4 Poweredge 300SC's, and a 1300. The 1300 and one of the 300's have dead motherboards, not even a beep. Though I think these are all 440BX based and are not as powerful as the Serverworks based systems.

I ended up taking the CPU's from the dead systems and putting them in the secondary slots of the working ones, so I have a couple dual P3-800 systems with 512MB of RAM

[Maxxarcade]

Re: This darn Dell...

I'm still trying to figure out what is wrong with this PE 500SC. Besides the memory problems, the performance with an Intel Pro/1000XT 64 bit LAN card is terrible... slower than 10/100.

If anyone here has a 500SC, it would be cool to know if it works with Memtest86. I just want to know if the board is bad or not, because if it is, I'll just strip it for parts.

[Spacedye69]

Re: This darn Dell...

I've had processors that would cause memtest errors. They always end up with bad cache. They would test fine on proc test like CPU Burn but would fail on system and mem test.