Bad Memory?
I've recently upgraded my RAM from 512mb to 1gb. The PC has been running with 2 x 256mb Crucial modules for a couple of years, I recently added 1 x 512mb but that's when I started getting problems.
The Mobo is an Abit KG7 (O/S=XP Pro), the DIMM slots need to be populated starting at No. 4. My original memory was taking up 4 & 3, so I popped the new memory into No. 2. Immediately I got BSOD which mentioned something about dumping the physical memory.
I removed all the memory and repositioned with the 512mb stick in 4, and the 2 x 256mb sticks in 3 & 2. This seemed to help but then now & again the PC just stopped responding and I had to reboot.
I tried a utility called memtest which reported no errors, so I contacted Crucial who suggested changing the Virtual Memory settings to 2000mb for both the initial & maximum size. They also sent me a link to download another memory utility from Microsoft.
The change to the virtual memory didn't fix the problem, the utility constantly failed at test 4 out of 6 (stride6), and when I say fail the test/PC stops responding and you have to reboot. So I thought great, found the problem, it's dodgy memory, but....I then tested each stick individually and they all failed at exactly the same place with the same symptoms.
Last night I had another BSOD, this time reporting 'The size of the \pagfile.sys entry is not valid'.
Crucial have given me an RMA for the 512mb, which I'm going to return today, but surely all 3 modules can't be faulty, especially when I've had no stability problems prior to adding the extra 512mb.
Could there be another factor making the utility fail, or have I really been running the PC for 2 years with bad memory without noticing (unlikely??)...
Any suggestions?
Cheers
The Mobo is an Abit KG7 (O/S=XP Pro), the DIMM slots need to be populated starting at No. 4. My original memory was taking up 4 & 3, so I popped the new memory into No. 2. Immediately I got BSOD which mentioned something about dumping the physical memory.
I removed all the memory and repositioned with the 512mb stick in 4, and the 2 x 256mb sticks in 3 & 2. This seemed to help but then now & again the PC just stopped responding and I had to reboot.
I tried a utility called memtest which reported no errors, so I contacted Crucial who suggested changing the Virtual Memory settings to 2000mb for both the initial & maximum size. They also sent me a link to download another memory utility from Microsoft.
The change to the virtual memory didn't fix the problem, the utility constantly failed at test 4 out of 6 (stride6), and when I say fail the test/PC stops responding and you have to reboot. So I thought great, found the problem, it's dodgy memory, but....I then tested each stick individually and they all failed at exactly the same place with the same symptoms.
Last night I had another BSOD, this time reporting 'The size of the \pagfile.sys entry is not valid'.
Crucial have given me an RMA for the 512mb, which I'm going to return today, but surely all 3 modules can't be faulty, especially when I've had no stability problems prior to adding the extra 512mb.
Could there be another factor making the utility fail, or have I really been running the PC for 2 years with bad memory without noticing (unlikely??)...
Any suggestions?
Cheers
0
Comments
Did you change any other settings in the BIOS for ram timings or anything? Also I'll assume you are running either win2k or XP. But you may want to try and do a repair of the OS and see if that solves the problem.
It could be bad ram. But I'm guessing it's just a coincidence that happened to be showing up now.
Oh also do a full surface scandisk and defrag your HDD could be a problem on it that is corrupting the pagefile.
Turn the page file off, and boot with no pagefile, then create a new one.
The memory test still fails though, any ideas why it would still do that - I'm convinced there's nothing wrong with it.....
But I'd see how it works for now and wait to see if it starts acting up again. Or wait and see what happens when you get your 512 chip back. That will then make a larger pagefile and that may be the start of your problems.