Hi,

First, which memtest did you use? From a live-cd or bootable memtest86? By chance are you overclocking?

As for the air from a compressor. If you have a good dryer or collector then that shouldn't be a problem. Plus the pressure should be low for the gun when used. If not you could damage your system with direct high pressure air on the motherboard and the components.

Hi gwsandvik, i used the bootable version--it's on my boot up menu, now...after rereading your post, it seems you may have meant i should have run it from a CD? The reason i didn't is i'm dialup, but i've got a buddy across the country who's fiber, so he snagged it for me and scp'd it over for me.

No, i dont' overclock, i've heard it's pretty iffy, and i really haven't had any pressing need to do that, but i would be interested in hearing others' thoughts about that, as well.

How low should air pressure be from a compressor? This seems efficient, but not if it's too much and i end up having to buy a new mobo...

i learned from experience, tinkering around with a couple of old computers i've managed to collect, that bleeding on a motherboard when you cut your fingers on a memory card definitely isn't good for the mobo...even cleaning it with alcohol didn't revive it...

Hi,

If you used the memtest86 bootable from floppy the test should be ok.Even the cd should be no problem. What happened when you restarted the test? Were the beeps at post or when you ran memtest86?

The reason I asked about OC was that sometimes people edge their memory and this can cause some random problems by either lockups or even memory loss. I don't OC that much. Just when need be!

As for the air pressure question, most air pressure guns limit it to 30 psi unless the gun has been modified. The 30 psi setting is more than enough. You just don't want to cause projectile damage to the MB or put water onto the board. That is why you need a dryer or collector to prevent the water being sprayed over the MB.

Heck I've cut myself but never had this happen. You must have really cut yourself to drop that much blood.

Hrm, my buddy got the same file from the same place and it did the same, on his box, so i am not sure what's going on; i found another one and i'll try it tonight...oh yeah, when you run memtest, it sits there beeping and saying it's loading, but it never does anything else.

Yeah, i've read quite a bit on OC and decided since i don't really need to do that, it's probably best i don't, especially since i don't know what i'm doing, just now.

Good to know on the air compressor.

As far as bleeding on the mobo, i was in there messing with a second hdd trying to figure out why it wouldn't work, plugging things in and unplugging them and slipped, and cut 4 middle knuckles; not that deeply, either, but i didn't realise i was bleeding for a few minutes. It's really not a big deal, i got the extra (dinosaur!) computers and parts so i could play "mu's laboratory," and have had some fun with them, but to be honest, since i've been on linux, all i can think about is learning to use it well.

Thanks tons to everyone for your replies, i'll put the new file on a floppy this time, tonight and let you know the results. i'm pretty satisfied my box is fine, but i am really curious and want to see how this works.

This is a really cool community, btw, people have been really friendly, and helpful, answering with specifics, from my very first post. i appreciate that.