Submitted 4 weeks ago by kumi@feddit.online to selfhosted@lemmy.world
https://blog.kumio.org/posts/2026/01/memtest86plus.html
How to test and safely keep using your janky RAM without compromising stability using memtest86+ and the memmap kernel param.
I tried this for a bit last year, and I never got it to work. I’m sure it was user error, but I’m super glad I got a new kit before shit blew up.
Might have to track down the bad kit I had and give this another try for giggles.
First rule in computer building is to always buy twice as much RAM as you actually need so you can just remove the bad stick when this happens
Second rule of computer building is just keep the receipt until after it passes 40 minutes of memtest. Third rule is to ignore rule one, nobody does that.
I always heard the first rule as “stay grounded”. Having 1TB of RAM just as backup sounds npt gronded.
A spare kit or two should be enough for most folks.
Needing 1TB of RAM is far outside the standard case.
Tetsuo@jlai.lu 4 weeks ago
Very cool to be able to do that even though I’m not sure it’s worth it to run a RAM module that has a known defect.
If the fault spreads there will be corruption again.
kumi@feddit.online 4 weeks ago
There is one part in the post mentioning how to “pad holes” in fail8ng areas. Maybe I should edit the post with some details around aligning reserved address space.
Otherwise, corruption of the RAM itself doea not usually spread like mold in bread or wear out and fail in similar ways to flash memory.
Tetsuo@jlai.lu 4 weeks ago
By spreading I meant thar if there is an underlying manufacturing defect it would be really difficult to predict where and when it would happen on memory. And if there is already a fault detected more might come later.
But I’m glad you documented how to do these types of workaround. It might be helpful with memory prices skyrocketing…