One of the most troublesome computer problems is bad memory modules and the difficultly diagnosing the bad memory.

Bad memory modules can cause a huge list of symptoms in a computer system, everything from the OS crashing often or sometimes hardly at all to problems booting and having large files become corrupted. A great tool for finding memory problems is MemTest86 that when written to a blank CD will test memory and report errors. The memtest86 program is downloaded and the “iso” CD image is burned to a blank CDR or CDRW disk. The computer is then rebooted with the cd in drive so that the computer boots from the CD and tests the subject computers memory. Many users test the memory for 24 hours straight to determine problems. If the computer has problems on reboot, let memtest86 run one pass and then use the ESC key to reboot ten times to see if errors pop up!