Time for memtest86+

Right, so my new build generally went off without a hitch.

After copying over my Warcraft program files folder and whacking the graphics settings to max, I have found that the game likes to crash a little with the usual memory address error within Windows (using Vista x64) which forces me to close the program.

What's odd is that I have not encountered this problem in FEAR or Crysis which I have also played for reasonable amounts of time on the system.

The computer is currently running the latest memtest86+ off a DVD (yeah, I ran out of CD's...) and got to ~60% after running for around 20 minutes this morning before I left for work.

I am confident that any errors could well be identified by the time I return tonight, and I am guessing with the speed it's running at, it might make 8-10+ passes?

I am mainly wondering if anyone has any other ideas over what could be causing the problem... other things I can think off include disabling my custom UI and trying the other memory slots. (rather not RMA the board...!)

Worst case: I have to RMA the RAM/Mobo. Sadly the RAM (OCZ 4GB kit, DDR3 PC3-10666 Gold) is now discountinued from eBuyer which means the only similar stuff is the Corsair XMS3 4GB kit or the same Corsair kit at 1666MHz.

Comments on memtest/RAM are most welcome. It's been awhile since I had a memory problem like this.

Personally I've found HCI Memtest to be a little harsher than memtest86, as well as good ol' prime95 because that loads your system and then eases off, giving transient loads which are more like what your rig would experience if you were actually gaming on it. With memtest86 everything gets loaded constantly and the voltages all sit at a nice constant level, no drooping or bouncing up and down like you would normally get. Maybe it depends on the system, I don't know..

And are you sure it's OK to just copy over the folder like that? What OS was it originally installed on?

Oh yeah, you could also try the new OCCT and it's various modes, just for some more testing. It has a nice PSU stress mode that might bring up some errors, since yours are happening in a game..

I'll be at home in 3 hours so will have to see how it did with memtest... in the past I did also use Prime95. Will definitely consider it again now, results dependant.

I'd have said copying the folder should be fine; the previous OS was XP Pro SP2 and each and every setting is contained within there, includuing settings on a per-account basis and all that. To my knowledge, there is no other information anywhere else that it could be missing.

I have not heard of/used OCCT before - I just had a quick look on their site and it looks just as good.

I will have to update this with the memtest results tonight.

Cheers so far, Snod.

Well... good news and bad news.

The good news is that memtest86+ did not find anything wrong with the RAM. All settings within memtest86+ were left 'as-is' which is the standard test. It ran for ~10 hours straight and the results are posted below.

All components in the system are also 'as-is;' nothing has been overclocked and the BIOS on the motherboard has not been touched.

Link to memtest86+ results

(the bad news being that I am still unable to fix the WoW random crashes; details I found on their forums are also just as vague and point to a trillion possible hardware reasons)

So this morning before I left for work again, I loaded up HCI's memtest and let it scan 'all available RAM.' I look forward to the results tonight.

Now I'm annoyed.... not sure what to test next. Prime95?

Or start clearing out my WoW folder/try a reinstall or something?

I'd try a reinstall of the game in that case, although you could give the PSU stress test of OCCT a shot - it loads the CPU and video card very hard, might force out an error. Or it might not. It has actually killed some people's PSUs though, which means it must work

Update #86327:

- I used the Blizzard repair tool, which checks every single file in the WoW directory and repairs them if it finds something broken or missing. This ran fine.
- I checked every single reg key that mentionned Blizzard or Warcraft... every normal address points to real locations.
- I updated every single add-on of my custom UI.
- I updated the motherboard and sound drivers, and the BIOS.
- I cried for a little.
- I ran the game in OpenGL mode, (their error FAQ says to try) but the FPS was so low I gave up running it after 10 minutes.

... still got random crashes, regarding 'the memory could not be read' at location XXXXXXXXXXXX.

I think I have exhausted nearly everything... I guess other things to try would be to run the machine with only one stick of RAM in and see if that assists.

Any other ideas please, anyone?

Erm................Don't play WoW?? LOL!

I think last time I updated this thread with a post in TLTE... but whatever:

Rolling back from Catalyst 9.1 to 8.12 seems to have 'fixed' the memory problem. I played for about an hour after installing the older drivers on Tuesday night, and last night it held up perfectly in places where it has crashed before, for ~3/4 hours.

Really, really weird.