MemtestG80 - A Memory Tester for NVIDIA CUDA-Enabled GPUs
One of the members of the Folding@home team, Imran Haque, has developed a memory tester for GPUs. Here's a brief description:
MemtestG80 is a software-based tester to test for "soft errors" in GPU memory or logic for NVIDIA CUDA-enabled GPUs. It uses a variety of proven test patterns (some custom and some based on Memtest86) to verify the correct operation of GPU memory and logic. It is a useful tool to ensure that given GPUs do not produce "silent errors" which may corrupt the results of a computation without triggering an overt error.
Basically, the idea is that we wanted to put out a code to test GPU memory that's roughly equivalent to Memtest86 on CPUs. If you run FAH heavily on a GPU, it's a good idea to check out your GPU memory, just as one would run tests on CPU memory.
The source code is available under the LGPL license and is hosted at SimTK, the Stanford scientific software repository. It can be downloaded at https://simtk.org/home/memtest. Binaries are available both there and on this page.
If MemtestG80 detects memory errors on your GPU, we recommend taking the following steps:
- If your card generates errors and is overclocked (this includes "factory overclocked" or "superclocked" cards - anything with higher-than-reference clock speeds), reset the clock frequencies to the NVIDIA reference frequencies and see if the problem persists.
This is especially true for the memory clock. Errors in the Logic or Random Blocks tests are likely to be at least somewhat sensitive to the shader clock as well. The upshot of this guideline is that if your overclock is generating any errors above the stock frequencies, then it's not a stable overclock. - If after this your card still generates errors in any test OTHER than the Modulo-20 test, these errors are likely indicative of a card that's gone bad somehow. Such a card ought to be replaced.
Recommended software (based on information furnished by your browser)
| Operating system | Version # | Click to download | Installation instructions | License info (legal stuff) | MD5-sum |
| Windows | |||||
| MemtestG80 for Windows | 1.00 | 
| Documentation | License | 7f59e1f05d57ce10fddbc5176c6c3d51 Released: 2009-04-27 |
| Macintosh | |||||
| MemtestG80 for Mac OS X | 1.00 | 
| Documentation | License | 0bcde2f831ff5119da3988149f02cd6f Released: 2009-04-27 |
| Linux | |||||
| MemtestG80 for 32-bit Linux | 1.00 | 
| Documentation | License | 1a645d72c68288cd405a56ecf9619746 Released: 2009-04-27 |
| MemtestG80 for 64-bit Linux | 1.00 |
| Documentation | License | ed67212d83935d81d1501f497cf6828a Released: 2009-04-27 |