Windows Memory Diagnostic Results: Where They Hide and What They Mean

Updated: October 2026

The memory test finished overnight, the PC booted back into Windows, and now nobody can find what it said. The result is in a log Windows never opens for you, and a fail carries more detail than the one-line message suggests. Here's where to find Windows Memory Diagnostic results, why they sometimes don't show up, and what to do when they say hardware problems were detected.

Where Windows Memory Diagnostic Results Are Stored

When the test finishes, Windows shows a notification after the next sign-in. It stays for a few seconds. If the PC is remote, or the user signed in and looked away, that's the result gone from view.

The copy that stays is in the System event log. Open Event Viewer (eventvwr.msc), go to Windows Logs, then System, and choose Filter Current Log. In the Event sources list, pick MemoryDiagnostics-Results. If you type it instead, it has to be spelled exactly like that or the filter returns nothing.

Each run writes two events at the same second. A pass logs events 1201 and 1101, and the message says the Windows Memory Diagnostic tested the computer's memory and detected no errors. A fail logs events 1202 and 1102 at level Error, and the message says it "detected hardware errors" and tells you to contact the computer manufacturer.

The 1201 and 1202 events are short. The 1101 and 1102 events carry the detail, which the next sections use.

Kapil Arya, a Windows MVP, runs the tool and opens the results in Event Viewer in the second half of this walkthrough.

Why the Results Aren't There

The most common version of this ticket: the scheduling entry is in the log, and the result isn't. This r/techsupport thread is exactly that, on Windows 11, and the replies walk through the filter before anyone suggests the test didn't finish.

Work through the causes in this order:

1. Wrong filter. The scheduling entry comes from a different source. Filter on MemoryDiagnostics-Results, not on the word "memory".
2. Wrong time. Sort by date and check the newest result is from this run, not last year's.
3. The test never finished. Someone pressed Esc, the laptop ran out of battery, or the PC crashed mid-test. A machine that blue-screens during the test is telling you something too.
4. Stuck at a BitLocker prompt. In a 2019 Microsoft Q&A case, a BitLocker-encrypted PC asked for its recovery key after the test and powered off when nobody entered it. No result was logged. Suspend BitLocker for one restart before a remote test.
5. The log rolled over or was cleared. A busy System log can overwrite older events. Read the result the same day.

If none of those fit, run the test again with someone watching the screen at the end. Our Windows Memory Diagnostic guide covers the run options.

Read the Result Like a Technician

Open event 1102 or 1101 and switch to the Details tab, XML view. Under Results you get the fields the notification never shows.

A real fail posted to r/buildapc in September 2025 shows what they look like. The PC had 32 GB of RAM, which the user had manually set from 4800 to 5600 MT/s. The event read CompletionType Fail, TestCount 12, 8,236,888 pages tested, 2,435 pages untested, and NumBadPages 2. The per-test counters showed one bad page in test 3 and one in test 9.

Three fields matter most:

• CompletionType is Success or Fail. That's the result.
• NumBadPages is how many memory pages failed. Two bad pages out of eight million is still a fail, and still worth acting on.
• NumPagesUnTested is memory the tool didn't test on that run. A pass can't vouch for those pages.

What the event won't tell you is which stick, slot or address failed. For that, you isolate.

What "Hardware Problems Were Detected" Means

The on-screen version of a fail is "Hardware problems were detected." It means the test wrote a pattern to memory and read back something different. Memory tests don't invent errors, so take it seriously.

It doesn't mean the RAM stick is dead. The fault sits somewhere in the memory path, and the stick is only one part of it. The top technical reply in this r/techsupport thread lists the others: the memory controller inside the CPU, the motherboard, or unstable settings.

Check the suspects cheapest first:

1. Settings. Reset memory to default speed in the BIOS, with XMP or EXPO off, and test again. If the fail disappears, the modules may be fine at their rated speed but not stable on that board at the higher one.
2. Seating. Reseat every module. A stick that's half out of its slot fails the same way a broken one does.
3. The stick. Test one module at a time in the same slot. One stick failing on its own is your replacement part.
4. The slot or board. Move a known-good stick into the suspect slot. If every stick fails there, it's the board.
5. The CPU. If every stick fails in every slot, the memory controller is left.

A BIOS update is worth doing between steps 2 and 3 on newer platforms, since firmware changes how the board trains memory.

Check Results Across Many PCs

Event Viewer is one machine at a time. PowerShell reads the same events and pulls the CompletionType and bad-page count out of the XML:

powershell
Get-WinEvent -FilterHashtable @{LogName='System'; ProviderName='Microsoft-Windows-MemoryDiagnostics-Results'; Id=1101,1102} -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue |
  ForEach-Object { $r = ([xml]$_.ToXml()).Event.UserData.Results
    [pscustomobject]@{ Time=$_.TimeCreated; Result=$r.CompletionType; BadPages=$r.NumBadPages } }

-ErrorAction SilentlyContinue stops the red "no events were found" error on PCs that never ran the test. Wrap the same block in Invoke-Command -ComputerName to read a list of machines at once. More commands for the same kind of ticket are in our PowerShell commands guide.

OpenFrame can run this query as a script across a client's devices and collect the output, so a fleet-wide check is one job instead of a remote session per PC.

The Short Version

Windows Memory Diagnostic results live in the System log under MemoryDiagnostics-Results: 1201 and 1101 for a pass, 1202 and 1102 for a fail. Read the XML of the 11xx event for the bad-page count. No event means the test didn't finish or the filter is wrong. "Hardware problems were detected" points at the memory path, not always the stick, so rule out settings and seating before ordering parts.

If the RAM comes back clean and the crashes continue, read the dump next. Our guide to the blue screen of death covers finding the driver behind it.