Has anyone figured out the secret to booting memtest86 in UEFI mode?

Ericloewe

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I've been trying to figure out how to boot the UEFI version of memtest86 (non-plus), but it's been rather frustrating on my X10SLM+-F.

Most of the time, I just get a black screen and a reboot shortly thereafter. However, I did get it to boot properly once and everything seemed to work. I don't think I changed anything and, as soon as I rebooted, keeping everything the same, it didn't work again.

So, has anyone figured out just what the trick is? I've tried nearly every combination of settings
I could think of, but not even resetting to defaults gets it going.
 

Ericloewe

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I use memtest86 v7 final. Mount ISO with virtual media. Press f11 to invoke boot menu. Select UEFI cdrom. After that, you should be presented a black screen but FPS in iKVM keeps changing 28-30. Go to virtual media and unplug the mounted iso image. It stars booting and gets you into memtest86 menu.
That... actually makes some sense. The one time it worked, I later found out that the image had been dismounted. I'll give it a try.

Of course, it's a strong candidate for mysterious issue of the year - and I don't say that lightly, I've seen my fair share of those.
 

Ericloewe

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Holy crap, it worked. What the hell...
 

Ericloewe

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hugovsky

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17sny3.jpg
 

yourmate

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I use memtest86 v7 final. Mount ISO with virtual media. Press f11 to invoke boot menu. Select UEFI cdrom. After that, you should be presented a black screen but FPS in iKVM keeps changing 28-30. Go to virtual media and unplug the mounted iso image. It stars booting and gets you into memtest86 menu.

Unfortunately, it doesn't work with memtest86 v8 :(
Investigation continues...

Edit:
Apparently, there's a UEFI firmware bug which doesn't let certain mobos booting with multi threads enabled when memtest86 UEFI iso used.

Workaround
Prepare your memtest86 UEFI USB stick as usual. When done edit "EFI/BOOT/blacklist.cfg" on the stick and add your mobo on a new line to the exclusion list with some predefined params.
In my case it was "X9SR",ALL,PARTIAL,RESTRICT_MP
I have done it as a partial match so my board will definitely be picked up - "X9SRE-F",ALL,EXACT,RESTRICT_MP would have worked as well, I suppose.


# Each blacklisted baseboard is stored on a separate line with the following format:
#
# <baseboard>,<BIOS version>,<EXACT|PARTIAL>,<restriction flag>
#
# <baseboard> is the case-sensitive baseboard string in double quotes (eg. "X99-DELUXE")
#
# <BIOS version> is the first BIOS version (string in double quotes) that no longer exhibits the issue. If no fix is available, specify ALL.
#
# <EXACT|PARTIAL> determines whether exact or partial matching is used on <baseboard string>.
#
# <restriction flag> determines the restriction policy to impose if there is a match. This can be one of the following values:
#
# RESTRICT_STARTUP : Display a warning message before MemTest86 boots
# RESTRICT_MP : Do not perform the multiprocessor test during startup, and set the default CPU mode to SINGLE
# DISABLE_MP : Completely disable multiprocessor support, restricting the CPU mode to SINGLE only
# DISABLE_CONCTRL : Disable console control protocol, which may be needed for some older systems (eg. iMac 7.1)
# FIXED_SCREENRES : Do not modify the default screen resolution, which is known to cause issues on some Lenovo systems
# RESTRICT_ADDR : Set the lower address limit to 0x100000 by default, which may be needed for some Mac systems (eg. Late 2013 27" iMac)
# TEST12_SINGLECPU : Run Test 12 in SINGLE CPU Mode. Workaround for CPU threads hanging in PARALLEL mode.
# DISABLE_LANG : Disable language support and font installation, which is known to cause issues on some Dell systems
 
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Ericloewe

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Back in the day, we figured out that the advertised ECC error injection didn't actually work on any real hardware we could get our hands on.
That helped sour the whole memtest86 thing.
 

Redcoat

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Post #65 here has my discussion with Passmark on the function of the ECC check back in the day (December 2017).
 

yourmate

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Back in the day, we figured out that the advertised ECC error injection didn't actually work on any real hardware we could get our hands on.
That helped sour the whole memtest86 thing.

I noticed that feature in the paid version but there was no way I'd pay £35 for it anyway...

Initially, I tried to use memtest86+ but I noticed the server rebooted several times (only from the fact that the elapsed time kept decreasing), then I realized that the development finished in 2013 ;)
 

RotsiserMho

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I use memtest86 v7 final. Mount ISO with virtual media. Press f11 to invoke boot menu. Select UEFI cdrom. After that, you should be presented a black screen but FPS in iKVM keeps changing 28-30. Go to virtual media and unplug the mounted iso image. It stars booting and gets you into memtest86 menu.

This is still the solution in 2020. Thanks!
 

Jasse Jansson

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X11-SSH-F with 32Gb ECC RAM here.
I have the latest memtest86 (free) on an USB stick and booted it as an "UEFI USB partition 2" and running the test right now.
The screen goes blank for a while but applying some paitence paid off.
This might take a while to finish.
I will run another test with ECC error injection enabled to see if it works.
 

Jasse Jansson

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The free version doesn't support ECC error injection, stating it here for the record.

Tested one server for at least 24 hours, no errors detected.

I'm now messing around with another server and memtest86 gives me this on the 3:d run:

[ECC errors detected] Test: 10 (Cell, Row, Rank, Bank): (88, EC26, 3, 2)

Drat.
Guess I have to run the test with just one of the DIMM's to find the failing one.
 

Ericloewe

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The free version doesn't support ECC error injection, stating it here for the record.
And the support in the paid version is often (always?) nominal, because they state that vendors lock it down in the system firmware.
 
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