Memtest freezing at 16 percent
I'm having trouble with my PC freezing, and decided to run Memtest. What happens is: no error is being revealed, but the test gets halted when it reaches 8:30 min (16% of total test). Does this mean something? What should I do?
I recently hit the same issue on Memtest 5.01 Release version. The test fails exactly at Step #7. At around 20-25% progress indicator.
If something similar is happening to you, the recommended solution is to not use SMP mode. I am guessing you did the the same thing as me. Hit F2 and enable SMP when the test starts. If that is not what happened and you do not see SMP enabled in the memtest86+ screen then you should try the other solutions recommended here.
Currently there is no known fix for this. Officially on memtest.org86+ only 5.01 exists as latest release as of this writing. If you are using a higher version it is likely an OEM but likely uses the same underlying base code with minor modification inheriting the issue.
Reference: http://forum.canardpc.com/threads/84663-Memtest86-is-freezing-while-running-test-7
When I ran the tests without SMP everything checks out. The only reason I investigated is because I find it hard to believe Hardware will be the most likely cause of issues so I would suggest trying different methods to confirm hardware failure.
I wasted half a day on this test and google brought me here first. Now I hope other can save that time to run test without SMP.
If Memtest freezes up, and doesn't recover (if you just let it keep running a while), then I can only conclude that this really is a good, strong indicator that the memory is not properly accessible.
Usually when there are memory errors, MemTest does not have a problem continuing to run, but it does continue, and so MemTest draws something on the screen. Having it completely freeze does indicate that the system's stability was affected, which is one of the possible symptoms of memory not working right.
This could be a bad memory stick, a bad motherboard, or maybe some other issue like a bug with a CPU feature. Disabling the CPU feature might help make Memtest work better in that case, and if so, may result in the system working better at other times (when you have a normal operating system booted up). There may be other possible causes; in theory, a damaged motherboard could cause errors when trying to access memory.
I would not trust this computer with any important data-handling tasks until I troubleshot further (which may involve replacing parts with other parts) to get to the bottom of the issue. I might tolerate the computer for something like playing a video, where a bit of inaccurate memory handling (loss) might be tolerable, for entertainment. If I cared about the presentation, like a business meeting where I am relying on the system stability so that I have a nice presentation, then I wouldn't be trusting this system. Understand that memory is needed to access data; bad memory can result in incorrect data being written, which could cause further troubles. Do treat this as a top priority until it really seems resolved.
And if you've been doubting whether there really is an issue or not, I'm interpreting your MemTest results to say yes, most certainly: there is. I'm not trying to say that I know exactly what is causing the problem, but I am confirming that something is wrong. Memtest did its job by conclusively telling you that.