RAM death?????

Discussion in 'Hardware' started by Fergal1982, Jun 28, 2004.

  1. Fergal1982

    Fergal1982 Petabyte Poster

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    ok guys, my flatmates pc has taken to dying lately. occassionally when its booting we get a BSoD and sometimes when it gets into windows (2000 pro) we get some errors. now i havent actually recorded the error messages (duh! first mistake), but to me it looked like a RAM problem. so i booted up my diagnostic software (microscope), and ran some tests on the memory, on running the tests on the extended memory it reported an error at address:
    00008000
    with the expected data of FFFFFFEF
    and the actual data of 27750BDA
    ( i doubt you need that data, but for the sake of completeness, there it is).

    im thinking the RAM is dying and may need replacing. any opinions? also, if it is the RAM, how can i ID which chip needs replacing. ill add the BSoD error and any other errors if/when they reappear!

    Fergal

    EDIT1: ok, so now ive disabled the quick POST, to see if it turns anything up (nothing so far) and we're experiencing spontaneous reboots. now error msg, just a reboot (no powerdown procedures either)

    NEWS JUST IN: BSoD error msg:

    "***STOP: 0x0000001E (0xC0000005, 0xBFEFD71A, 0x00000001, 0x00000000)

    ***Address BFEFD71A base at BFEEC000, Datestamp 3eafo51d - NDIS.sys"

     
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  2. tripwire45
    Honorary Member

    tripwire45 Zettabyte Poster

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    Doesn't have to be the ram. My dell laptop did similar tricks and it turned out to be a bad motherboard. Could also be a screw up in the OS that will require a reformat/reload.
     
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  3. nugget
    Honorary Member

    nugget Junior toady

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    Could also be the power supply Fergal. What about overheating?? How long does it take for the problems to start? Straight away or after a half hour or so?

    As for identifying which stick of RAM is faulty (if any) it's just a matter of trial and error (remove, replace and try again).
     
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  4. Fergal1982

    Fergal1982 Petabyte Poster

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    we originally had problems with cpu overheat - but i cleaned out the fan and heat sink an that sorted it (never got round to the thermal gel tho), its more or less immediate! sometimes it'll boot to windows an sit for AGES before you go to do something and crash!

    Fergal
     
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  5. Bluerinse
    Honorary Member

    Bluerinse Exabyte Poster

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    ***Address BFEFD71A base at BFEEC000, Datestamp 3eafo51d - NDIS.sys"

    I was getting BSOD recently with the same NDIS.sys error.

    I would suspect the NIC drivers, if the box has a NIC, is it on the HCL?

    If you loaded unsigned drivers for any hardware then these are the type of errors to expect.

    Also, there is a known issue with W2K SP1/2 that can be fixed by applying the latest service pack, which currently is 4

    http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;317475

    Pete
     
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  6. Fergal1982

    Fergal1982 Petabyte Poster

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    ok guys. ran the 2k cd an repaired the installation. seems to be running (kinda) fine, though apparently it did a memory dump and immediately rebooted! time will tell. currently got it running chkdsk and sfc

    Fergal

    EDIT: its getting a BSoD saying that theres a page fault in a non paged area. then it dumps physical memory to disk. any ideas?
     
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  7. shaunyboy

    shaunyboy Nibble Poster

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    Run a disk scan using a proper (ie non MS) tool eg the IBM disk diagnostic bootdisk http://www.hitachigst.com/hdd/support/download.htm is great as is seatools from seagate. Then run a full and exhaustive memtest http://www.memtest86.com leave it to run overnight, it takes f'ing ages.

    Weaknesses in memory sometimes show themselves first during an install, not sure why but maybe the mass of files going thru them pushes them to the limit. Files reported as corrupted etc. I think this is where you are. Is it one or two sticks of ram?

    Good luck, keep us informed,

    Shaun
     
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  8. Fergal1982

    Fergal1982 Petabyte Poster

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    ok, i downloaded the programs you suggested shaun. i like them - so much ive burned the ISO's and boot floppy's. lol.

    anyways, i ran the disk fitness test and it turned up no errors.

    however, when i ran the memory test. by the gods, it turned up a whole shedload of errors! apparently it crashed due to an unknown interrupt. my flatmate started it up again. It did however, have many many MANY errors (over a million). an it was only on pass 3! lol.

    so im thinking the RAM is dead. off to buy some 128-pin SDRAM chips.

    Fergal
     
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