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XPS 8950

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Ulrich Stern edited this page Jun 20, 2023 · 82 revisions

XPS 8950

This page has a partial log of the MemTest86-detected errors we had on our XPS 8950. For a high-level description of the issue, see the Home page.

Notes:

  • the log is partial in that it contains memory errors only from 2023; errors from 2022 are not shown.
    • initially, I ran the free version of MemTest86, but upgraded to Pro in July 2022.
  • I ran MemTest86 by booting the machine from a USB flash drive (MemTest86's default), so the regular OS of the machine is not used.
  • I configured MemTest86 as follows:
    • initially, my Test Selection was MemTest86's default (all tests selected but the experimental Test 14), but I changed to "Test 7 [Moving inversions, 32-bit pattern]" only at the beginning of 2023 since Test 7 was the only test detecting errors in the preceding couple of weeks. Also, I changed the Number of passes to 999 for thorough testing.
    • my CPU Selection was MemTest86's default ("Parallel (All CPUs)").
  • if MemTest86 did not freeze (see next bullet), I was able to save its report about the memory error.
    • the reports are nice-looking, pretty detailed, and linked below.
  • in about one sixth of the MemTest86 runs with error, however, the machine froze, often when I tried to stop the test to save a report.
    • I had a similar freeze after running the memory test in Dell's built-in diagnostic, see Home page.
    • it is likely the freezes were caused by memory errors; the machine never froze after a MemTest86 run without memory error.
  • it is unclear what caused the dramatic drop in memory speed for the 2023-04-04 report below. I had configured MemTest86 in my usual way (see above). One possibility is that memory errors caused the speed measurement to be off.

Error log (starting 1/1/23):

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