Memtest86

Memtest86 is considered by the majority of the hardware testing community the number one application when it comes to defective RAM sticks. The answer to the question regarding the working state of the installed memory modules comes fast with Memtest86 and that is what matters the most besides the certainty of the verdict.

First step after a thorough cleaning

Once you have stripped your computer of your vital information and only the basic and most necessary parts are properly cleaned and interconnected, you may want to boot up and run some tests.
The cleaning process does not only consist of a bit of dusting here and there, but taking all the system and thoroughly clean it until it sparkles and, also, reapplying thermal paste if the current one has turned into a solid version of the initial well-balanced compound.

Professional tools to spot memory issues

Memtest86 is actually recommended as the second test of the suite, right after checking for temperature and voltage thresholds. If everything seems to be in order in that sector, you may want to fire up Memtest86 and let it perform the series of test patterns to most memory addresses, the same as the one used by experts.

Multiple deployment methods

The application has a high grade of compatibility, thus you really have to be unlucky for your system to not be able to run it. You can easily create bootable discs, USB flash drives and even floppy disks to ensure you boot directly into the program. As for detected faulty RAM modules, you just cannot overlook them because the application makes it impossible for you to do that thanks to the screaming red it displays whenever an error is encountered.

To end with

All in all, Memtest86 can easily track down unhealthy RAM sticks and pinpoint to them as the cause of some very ugly errors that may occur during your everyday work. Novice users are advised to pay extra attention and not get into the more advanced options of the program as they were not intended for general use. Other than that, Memtest86 is a heck of a tool!