PassMark Software has shipped MemTest86 7.0, a major update for the veteran memory diagnostic tool.

Testing now runs in Parallel CPU Mode by default, as long as it’s supported by the UEFI firmware, significantly improving performance.

Smarter testing for the row hammer effect should result in the detection of more “disturbance errors”, where memory cells may interfere with each other’s operation and change their values.

The MemTest86 Pro Site Edition gains full support for PXE network booting, and uploading report files to the server. (Sounds good to us, too, but keep in mind this is the $2,490 enterprise version.)

There’s more control of testing on multiprocessor systems, including the ability to choose which CPUs to enable, and an option to turn multiprocessor support off entirely.

Parallel CPU testing by default should accelerate performance significantly

The interface sees a few welcome tweaks. The console isn’t forced to 80 x 25 any more if there’s a higher resolution available, and a BGCOLOR config file parameter (Pro edition only) specifies the background colours to use.

Keep in mind that the RAM info page now displays the effective, rather than the actual clock speed of your DDR RAM– that’s twice the value it was before.

Elsewhere, there’s the usual scattering of extended hardware support, bug fixes and minor enhancements.

MemTest86 7.0 is available as a bootable CD or USB drive image and should run on any PC, Mac or Linux system.