How To Run Memory Diagnostics

You don't need to test RAM weekly. But run diagnostics in these scenarios:

Running the test is only half the battle. You need to interpret the data.

Bad RAM rarely fails completely at once. Instead, it degrades slowly. Look for these symptoms:

If you experience any of the above, stop troubleshooting software—test your RAM first.

If you have multiple RAM sticks (e.g., two 8GB sticks) and only one is failing, you don't need to throw away both. Here is how to isolate the faulty module.

If you are running Windows 10 or Windows 11, you already have a perfectly capable memory testing tool built directly into the operating system. It’s not the most thorough tool on this list, but it is the most convenient for catching gross memory errors.

Windows Diagnostic is good, but MemTest86 is the industry standard. It runs outside of any operating system, tests every byte of RAM, and can detect intermittent errors that Windows might miss.