accessible ram testing

[Jason White]

Gregory Nowak <greg at gregn.net> wrote:
> does anyone have tips for accessibly testing system RAM? The way I
> understand the situation is that memtest86/memtest86+ have to be
> started by a boot loader like grub. Since grub can use a serial
> console, the boot loader part can be accessible (assuming the machine
> has a serial port). I don't know if memtest86 can communicate through
> a serial console.

That's an interesting question. As far as I know, it isn't accessible. There
may be testing tools that can be run on a live Linux system.

For machines with ECC RAM, there is mcelog, which reports memory errors to
syslog. My desktop machine has ECC RAM, but my laptop doesn't. Some
commentators such as Russell Coker argue that it's worth buying desktop
machines with ECC memory, and he notes that they're available relatively
inexpensively (new or used).