How to run memtest headless?

[cinereus]

Is there any way to run memtest with no monitor?

[JonathanM]

1 hour ago, cinereus said:

Is there any way to run memtest with no monitor?

Yes, but since you couldn't see the results, it would be pointless.

 

tldr: No.

[cinereus]

Haha thanks. Seems a bit of an oversight. Couldn't it be run in a VM somehow? Or at least log the results to the USB it's running from? I'm not really able to buy a VGA monitor and VGA cable to leave running for checking 128 GB RAM.

[JorgeB]

If your signature is correct you have a board with IPMI, no need for keyboard/monitor.

[trurl]

9 minutes ago, cinereus said:

Haha thanks. Seems a bit of an oversight. Couldn't it be run in a VM somehow? Or at least log the results to the USB it's running from? I'm not really able to buy a VGA monitor and VGA cable to leave running for checking 128 GB RAM.

memtest must run as the only thing, no OS or anything else running.

 

Not sure who you think has made an oversight here. This is the way memtest always works on everything, and Limetech didn't write memtest.

[cinereus]

15 minutes ago, trurl said:

memtest must run as the only thing, no OS or anything else running.

 

Not sure who you think has made an oversight here. This is the way memtest always works on everything, and Limetech didn't write memtest.

I know, I've used memtest for years and I didn't mention limetech.

Presumably memtest itself takes up some memory which then can't be tested? And is there any reason why it can't write its results?

[JorgeB]

Did you miss my post or is your signature out of date?

[cinereus]

41 minutes ago, johnnie.black said:

Did you miss my post or is your signature out of date?

I missed your post. Are you saying there is a way to run it headless after all? How do I do this with IPMI then? I can't get Java to ever open .jnlp files.

 

(btw found reference to a weird version of memtest that does seem to allow saving a report: https://www.idownloadblog.com/2017/06/08/test-ram-integrity-memtest86/)

Edited April 19, 2020 by cinereus

[JorgeB]

6 minutes ago, cinereus said:

How do I do this with IPMI then?

Google IPMI and how to use it, there's nothing you can do with a keyboard/mouse that can't be done with IPMI.

[JorgeB]

Also, not much point running memtest with ECC RAM, unless you disable EEC first in the BIOS, with ECC enable and if there are any memory errors they should be reported on the SEL (system event log), usually indicating the problem DIMM/slot.

[cinereus]

1 hour ago, johnnie.black said:

Google IPMI and how to use it, there's nothing you can do with a keyboard/mouse that can't be done with IPMI.

I have a keyboard/mouse. It's just the monitor I'm missing. Looking at IPMI I can't see how to run memtest via the command line tool but perhaps using the web GUI is easier. The only issue there is I can't get the Java console to work at all (edit okay got it working in IE).

 

But if you say it's pointless with ECC RAM can I just skip this step and just keep an eye on the IPMI system event log?

Edited April 19, 2020 by cinereus

[JorgeB]

22 minutes ago, cinereus said:

But if you say it's pointless with ECC RAM can I just skip this step and just keep an eye on the IPMI system event log?

Yeah, do that instead, server will keep working normally after any correctable RAM error and it will be logged on the SEL, you'll usually also get a warning if FCP is installed, if there's an uncorrectable error the server will halt to avoid data corruption.

 

You should also look into how IPMI works, very useful for servers, and you can store away the keyboard.

[cinereus]

Thanks for your help. Think I got IPMI working okay now using the Java console

 

Don't get how it chooses its IP address though or how it works with a different NIC through the same physical interface...