Ram Test ST

[Atari8guy]

I"m still learning about the ST. After an extensive google search I was unable to find a program that would test the RAM in my machine (I suspect I might have some bad/loose RAM). I found a few files, but they were all broken links. Can anyone suggest or point to a program that tests the RAM in the ST?

 

Thanks,

[mimo]

use sysinfo, but you will have to write it to a disc (I use floimg on my PC)

does a load of other tests too

[Zogging Hell]

use sysinfo, but you will have to write it to a disc (I use floimg on my PC)

does a load of other tests too

 

There was a program associated with the XtraRam memory upgrade that thoroughly tested the memory of the ST. Might be worth trying to track that down.

[Atari8guy]

SYSINFO Reports: 1024 Kbytes of Ram

with only 528 Kbytes available....

 

This is why I would like the Ram Tester...shouldn't I have more than that? I only have an UltraSatan with ICD Pro on boot up, then I get that.

 

Also Civilization (which indicates it requires 1 MB) doesn't run well, the colours are funny and the city display is unreadable....MAYBE it's TOS 1.0, so I've ordered replacements, but I'd still like to find out about that RAM tester.

[Atari8guy]

I found the name of the file Xtra.prg but coudn't find the actual file...anyone have this?

[+remowilliams]

I've used ramtest quite a lot. Excellent for finding memory errors, though it requires a serial port connection to the machine being tested.

 

ramtest.zip

[+Stephen Moss]

SYSINFO Reports: 1024 Kbytes of Ram

with only 528 Kbytes available....

 

This is why I would like the Ram Tester...shouldn't I have more than that? I only have an UltraSatan with ICD Pro on boot up, then I get that.

 

Also Civilization (which indicates it requires 1 MB) doesn't run well, the colours are funny and the city display is unreadable....MAYBE it's TOS 1.0, so I've ordered replacements, but I'd still like to find out about that RAM tester.

I don't know how much RAM is supposed to be fitted to your ST (presumably the 1Mb SYSINFO indicates) but less than 2Mb will have trouble running 1Mb games, with 2Mb of RAM you have 1Mb for games + 1Mb for accessories, replacment desktops and disk drivers.

 

I have never used IDC Pro but perhaps you should look into how much memory it uses as that might be where nearly half of your available memory has gone, also check that you do not have any accessories or the old control pannel accessory running as they will be memory resident and also consume some of the available memory.

If you need accessories/a control panel then replace the original control pannel accessory with XControl, it take up less space and any well written accessories for it like those that come as standard are not memory resident, they only consume RAM while you are using them. Also there is a part of Xcontrol that will display the fitted TOS version and amount of RAM but I can't remember if that is just total RAM or total and available as it has been a couple of years since I last used it.

 

I hope you are replacing TOS 1.0 with something better like 1.04 (DOS compatable disk formatting) or 1.06.

 

As for RAM test software I cant realy help you there except to say that SYSINFO does a decent job, the Marpet Extra RAM boards came with software for memory testing but my copy nerver really seemed to do much, I was expecting it to report the total amount of RAM and how much of it was good but all it seemed to do was constantly read and write to memory locations.