[Solved] Windows Memory Diagnostic Tool hangs at 21% 88% 89% 90... on every computer

[Nardella]

Edit: Solved solution here: 

 

 

On every computer in my home running Windows Memory Diagnostic Tool with extended selected results in a hang/freeze at 21%.

All the 5 machines are Core 2 Duo or Core 2 Quad and are running either Windows 7 or Windows 10.

 

I have tried one of the machines with two 4GB sticks (8GB total) installed then tried one 4GB stick then the other 4GB stick. It always hangs at 21% regardless of how much memory is installed.

 

The computers span several brands (lenovo, HP, two custom desktops and one lenovo laptop).

 

I am currently running memtest86+ on the computer that was originally having problems. I am wondering if anyone else has the same result on both Core 2 and other platforms. Please consider testing this yourself.

 

To reproduce this, simply boot the Windows Memory Diagnostic Tool (searching for memory from the start menu give it as the first result by default) when booted press F1, Down then F10 and wait.

 

I have edited the topic to include other relevant percentages to improve SEO for this.

[zMeul]

I'd suggest you use memtest86: http://www.memtest86.com/

[flibberdipper]

I actually had this run from a corrupted graphics driver on my old Q6600 rig, and it rocketed through the test.

[Nardella]

6 minutes ago, tmcclelland455 said:

I actually had this run from a corrupted graphics driver on my old Q6600 rig, and it rocketed through the test.

Did you run it in extended mode? What would a corrupted graphics driver have to do with a boot memory test?

8 minutes ago, zMeul said:

I'd suggest you use memtest86: http://www.memtest86.com/

Why memtest86 instead of memtest86+

[zMeul]

1 minute ago, Nardella said:

Why memtest86 instead of memtest86+

no preference, either would do

just that memtest86+ hasn't been updated in a while

[Nardella]

Just now, zMeul said:

no preference, either would do

just that memtest86+ hasn't been updated in a while

Okay, then why did you post at all if I already said I was running memtest86+?

[zMeul]

4 minutes ago, Nardella said:

Okay, then why did you post at all if I already said I was running memtest86+?

• you did your original tests with Window's Memtest - that's not a reliable tool
• memtest86 is a much better tool
• memtest86+ hasn't been updated in 3y

 

take your pick

[Nardella]

1 minute ago, zMeul said:

you did your original tests with Window's Memtest - that's not a reliable tool

memtest86 is a much better tool

and memtest86+ hasn't been updated in 3y

 

take your pick

 

25 minutes ago, Nardella said:

I am currently running memtest86+

I don't understand your confusion.

[zMeul]

Just now, Nardella said:

I don't understand your confusion.

I didn't make any confusion

[flibberdipper]

1 hour ago, Nardella said:

Did you run it in extended mode? What would a corrupted graphics driver have to do with a boot memory test?

Why memtest86 instead of memtest86+

It did run extended mode, and for whatever reason, Windows wanted to do it when the driver went south.

[luckz]

For people who come from the future and find this:

 

Extended mode just takes many, many hours. 21%, 88%, 89%, 90% are known points where you can wait forever without seeing any progress - and 21% is the longest of those.

It's not unexpected for the whole test to take, say, eight hours. For three or four it might be stuck at 21%.

 

Unless Microsoft's Windows Memory Diagnostic is stuck at 21% for an entire day, there's no reason to worry.

[Nardella]

@luckz thanks!

[certainOrder]

On 7/10/2017 at 10:44 AM, luckz said:

For people who come from the future and find this:

 

Extended mode just takes many, many hours. 21%, 88%, 89%, 90% are known points where you can wait forever without seeing any progress - and 21% is the longest of those.

It's not unexpected for the whole test to take, say, eight hours. For three or four it might be stuck at 21%.

 

Unless Microsoft's Windows Memory Diagnostic is stuck at 21% for an entire day, there's no reason to worry.

I am from the future and I thank you.

[Golique]

@luckz

I come from even further future and I also thank you.

PS. Still no legit hoverboards in 2019 :(

[Lou15]

On 7/10/2017 at 3:44 PM, luckz said:

For people who come from the future and find this:

 

Extended mode just takes many, many hours. 21%, 88%, 89%, 90% are known points where you can wait forever without seeing any progress - and 21% is the longest of those.

It's not unexpected for the whole test to take, say, eight hours. For three or four it might be stuck at 21%.

 

Unless Microsoft's Windows Memory Diagnostic is stuck at 21% for an entire day, there's no reason to worry.

Even further still and your post is still useful thanks!

[Seifounage]

On 12/19/2019 at 1:32 PM, Lou15 said:

Even further still and your post is still useful thanks!

reminds me of the Youtube recommendations algorithm.. I think there's a linustechtips algorithm as well

[JOJO040]

On 7/10/2017 at 4:44 PM, luckz said:

For people who come from the future and find this:

 

Extended mode just takes many, many hours. 21%, 88%, 89%, 90% are known points where you can wait forever without seeing any progress - and 21% is the longest of those.

It's not unexpected for the whole test to take, say, eight hours. For three or four it might be stuck at 21%.

 

Unless Microsoft's Windows Memory Diagnostic is stuck at 21% for an entire day, there's no reason to worry.

I'm even further from the future than anyone else here and Thank You !

[PAPO1990]

New furthest future thanker for @luckz tried google, then thought I'd search the forums specifically. I don't know about algorithms since it was a manual search, but I'm glad I found this... off to do other things then instead of watching progress

[2040_disposable]

I too am from the future. Thanks for the heads up @luckz !

[Marcelo Birche Ferri]

More from the future ... 16 hours in the test ... 2 of 2, 21% concluded of 60% total ... (second 21%) ... I am going to see this end ... 

[luckz]

If you're in the now-present and run Windows 10 & DDR4 hardware, the above tool is pretty outdated & outclassed. The kids these days use something like these:

 

https://www.karhusoftware.com/ramtest/ (paid: 9.99€)

 

Test Mem 5 with anta777 config:
https://www.overclock.net/threads/memory-testing-with-testmem5-tm5-with-custom-configs.1751608/ (package)
OR https://testmem.tz.ru/testmem5.htm -> https://testmem.tz.ru/tm5.rar & https://drive.google.com/file/d/1uegPn9ZuUoWxOssCP4PjMjGW9eC_1VJA/edit

 

https://hcidesign.com/memtest/ (free/paid; download free and run many instances simultaneously)

 

--

For people from the even further away future, someone seems to maintain a decent guide of tools & tips here: https://github.com/integralfx/MemTestHelper/blob/master/DDR4%20OC%20Guide.md

[Parv]

Hi everyone. Future man here.

 

I found this thread when I saw similar hiccups on my scan.

 

My configuration is:

HP Pavilion Gaming 15 - CX0141TX

Intel Core i5 8300H

16 GB DDR4 memory (8 GB OEM + 8 GB Crucial of similar spec)

I have used this laptop for over two years now.

 

My scan took:

1 day, 19 hours, and about 35 minutes to finish. The Windows Memory Diagnostic Tool ran in Extended mix/mode with Default Cache settings, for 2 Passes.

 

Backstory...

I was experiencing random bluescreen crashes throughout the day, for over a month now. I thought that it was my SSD, because my laptop would start up to say, "...boot device not found. Install an operating system..."

 

I checked everything, re-seated the RAM, SSD, even the SATA connector on the hard drive (which was tricky because HP put glue on the flat ribbon cable). After doing all of this, nothing helped. I started to suspect the memory, after the disk checking utilities said that my storage and boot drives were fine.

 

Hence I ran the diagnostic tool in Basic mix/mode - The first time. Even though Windows Memory Diagnostic Tool didn't show any errors after the test, the laptop got much more stable after that. I ran it with Extended mode just to be sure. I didn't get any memory related errors in the results this time either.

 

The system seems much stable now, so I guess it helped, no more boot errors or crashes. But I don't see how it could have...

[raywood]

I was in the future, but this site warned that in that case this thread would be quite old. So I came back, just so I could talk to you all. This was as far back as I could come, but it seems to work. At this point, among multiple sources (e.g., TechDator, LifeWire, Windows Report, The Geek Page), PassMark's MemTest86 appears to be the dominant alternative to Windows Memory Diagnostic. I found that Softpedia's ISO download for MemTest86 9.4 was nonbooting, but PassMark's download did work to create a bootable USB drive. I was just about to convert that USB to an ISO, but the time machine is spinning up and I'm afraid I won't have tim