Random restart, freezing, kernal panics and memtest

C

cavenphoto

Registered
I have 1ghz g4 Mirror door, lots of space, lots of ram. I've stripped down the drives, zeroed them out, everything. Both Techtool pro and Apple hardware say all is fine. I downloaded memtest and got a failure notice on all the different Ram sticks I tested. I had the same problem with last Ram I had in the machine. (All replaced) I am thinking hardware problem, any ideas on where to look and how to test it? Thanks
 
Maybe you are mis-interpreting an error message from memtest.
In my experience, memtest is pretty good, and you can usually trust a failed test as bad memory. Seems doubtful that you get problems with ALL your memory.

What is the exact text of the error message that you get from memtest?

Have you re-checked the process that you follow to run memtest correctly?

Have you verified that kernel panics are not caused by OTHER hardware, such as mis-behaving PCI cards, or (more common) external USB hubs?

An Apple Service center would be able to run the Apple Service Diagnostics, which does a more thorough test of the logic board, including the memory controller.
 
Dear Delta,

Thanks for getting back. Memtest just starts running in Terminal when I click on the program in application. It says it is using the default settings, single pass.
I didn't screenshot the failure message it gave but it was testing the block sequential and the failure message came through when I tested 3 separate sticks of 512 Simpletech ram. I put 2 sticks in the upper slots and ran the test and it says all is fine. My suspicion would be it is just the random thing. I have an internal usb hub that I will pull out. Any help on the protocol for memtest greatly appreciated. Thanks again
 
The user's guide that comes with memtest gives you the best way to use memtest, which is usually through single-user mode. That configuration gives you the chance to test the most memory at one time. Running that from the terminal doesn't let you test the most possible memory.
 
Dear DeltaMac,

I pulled the internal usb hub and it seems to have improved. I installed all the ram and ran memtest and it checked out OK. Thanks for the great advice! I will keep checking and let you know.
 
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