How can I test my GPU memory/RAM?

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I run MemTest86 a lot at work on customer's machines, and it's great for troubleshooting memory issues. My question is, how can I test that a GPU is starting to go?

I know of programs like 3DMark to push the graphics card to its limits, but what about with Video Memory? Is it worth testing? Is there a stress tool actually able to catch issues in the video card (memory), perhaps using CUDA/OpenCL?

Canadian Luke

Posted 2012-08-01T19:49:34.417

Reputation: 22 162

3(in my opinion) I think a stress test would do the trick, because if it is going bad it would either fail or not meet the benchmarks for that kind of card - but, if anyone can find a utility for this, I would be interested as well. – cutrightjm – 2012-08-01T19:54:13.427

1@ekaj I actually just had a customer's computer in with 2 GTX670s in SLI, and it passed the benchmarks, but still kept freezing the computer when just running every day applications like IE9 and Microsoft Word. When I switched out just ONE of the cards, the pair worked great – Canadian Luke – 2012-08-01T19:57:17.980

That's really weird - afterwards, did you separately test that card in a different computer? – cutrightjm – 2012-08-01T19:58:06.583

No, we gave the customer back one of his working cards and a new one off the shelf that wouldn't crash. We will be testing the other one in a new system, but need a big one first to handle it – Canadian Luke – 2012-08-01T19:59:04.387

2@Luke - I always test the cards individually for just this reason, and that approach has worked pretty well. – Shinrai – 2012-08-01T20:07:38.390

Answers

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GPU stress tests are generally designed to attempt to overheat the GPU. Depending on the particular test, this might or might not use the entire video memory or check its integrity at some point.

Video Memory stress Test is specifically designed for this purpose, and it's quite similar to MemTest86+. You can test the memory using DirectX, CUDA or OpenGL.

The downloadable zip contains VMT (for Windows) and VMTCE (Clean Environment, bootable ISO). There's also a floppy version.

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Dennis

Posted 2012-08-01T19:49:34.417

Reputation: 42 934

3Seems like this limits out at 2GB video memory... or is my card messed up? – MattPark – 2014-06-24T01:49:08.217

2Does anyone have a grub2 config for booting the ISO version of this? – starbeamrainbowlabs – 2015-07-22T18:19:11.900

One of the few times a software-rec comes good, congratz. – djsmiley2k TMW – 2018-03-25T18:26:27.383

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There is also http://sourceforge.net/projects/cudagpumemtest/ which I use under Ubuntu 12.04

– math – 2012-08-10T10:09:32.923

How to make it work with GTX 660? I'm getting error ----- Trying 32bpp RGB:888 mode...OK PATTERN NOT FOUND Trying 32bpp BGR:888 mode...NOT SUPPORTED (Code: 80004001) NO PASS COMPLETED – Hooch – 2013-11-19T18:36:40.230

1@Hooch: Did you try different test types? I'd expect DirectX and/or CUDA to work. If neither does, you should ask a new question. – Dennis – 2013-11-20T05:00:36.740