up vote 23 down vote favorite
7

I have ubuntu 11 running off a 3.6gb usb flash/stick drive. System has 4gb ram and blank harddisk (wiped using DBAN tool). How do i check if there are no errors in my RAM ? Is there a guaranteed way to check that via some linux command ? If not, it would be great to know why.

Thanks.

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1  
Before booting up Ubuntu access the GRUB screen and select memtest. – Uri Herrera Sep 8 '13 at 23:16
    
You can use memtester once booted into linux.. e.g. sudo memtester 1024 5 This should allocate 1024MB of memory, and repeat the test 5 times. – Ricky Hewitt Feb 6 '16 at 22:05
up vote 14 down vote accepted

The Ubuntu Live CD includes a tool called Memtest86+ that will do just that—test your computer’s RAM. Boot up from the Ubuntu LiveCD, press and hold the Shift key, which will bring up the GRUB menu. Select Memory Test

enter image description here

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You don't even have to have the live CD. You can just press Shift repeatedly during startup of linux to get to the exact same menu. – iFreilicht Sep 7 '15 at 9:06
up vote 44 down vote

By installing the memtester package, you can check your system for errors while it's still running. No need for a restart, just run that application.

To install it, open a terminal and type:

sudo apt-get install memtester

You can then use it like so:

sudo memtester 1024 5

This should allocate 1024MB of memory, and repeat the test 5 times.

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4  
Does this somehow mean that only a part of the memory is tested, and the rest remains untested? How can I make sure that all of the memory is tested? – donquixote Mar 8 '16 at 6:16
1  
Only that part of memory is tested! – MajesticRa Oct 4 '16 at 11:35
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Upvoted, but unless I've missed something it is not possible to do a thorough test of the entire memory using memtester as the system becomes totally unresponsive (or even memtester fails to claim the full extent of memory you are asking for). So I guess memtester's use case is when you are trying to test a particular area of memory using some advanced arguments which I haven't explored. Otherwise for a through scan use UNetbootin that runs before loading the operating system and any user programs (so the responsiveness issues becomes moot). – Marcus Junius Brutus Nov 13 '16 at 20:31
up vote 1 down vote

Reboot your computer, and at the GRUB boot screen, select memtest.

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This seems to assume that we would be seeing the GRUB boot screen at statup. I, for one, do not. – 42- Jan 5 '17 at 20:06
    
@42- Hold SHIFT key while booting a computer. – Denis Kulagin Oct 27 '17 at 5:51
    
memtest86+ is not available for EFI systems. It's only for BIOS. You may look for a proprietary alternative for EFI. – Artyom Nov 8 '17 at 19:49

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