Memory Failure

[astro]

Yea, It's me again. As I was loading some software on my new computer that I just finished on Monday, I develope a problem. I had to reboot at one point and it startup screen stopped and said "MEMORY TEST FAILURE"
It gave instruction to hit F1 to continue or DEL to enter setup. On one try, several try's
I hit continue and windows loaded. At shut down, after clicking shutdown (YES) a blue screen saying "A fatal exception OD has occurred at 0117:00006905". Will not leave using any key or ALT+CTRL+DEL. HELP again.

[LazMan]

Seems that you may have bumped your computer and something either came loose inside or you actually have a REAL failure - just as the message implies - MEMORY FAILURE. Sometimes the error messages are telling you where to look first. A really good indication of a memory issue is upon powerup - your computer (if you've got CMOS set this way - some systems give you a choice to disable this) will do a quick bit-flop test of your RAM. If there is a problem anywhere, you won't finish bootup without you having to press a continue key of some sort.

The first thing I would do is try to shutdown normally (if you can) - or if not, just unplug the darned thing. Be careful of ESD (electrostatic discharge), open your case and remove, then reseat each of your memory modules. Check all your cards to make sure they're seated properly by giving each a slight push (or if it was me, I'd simply remove and reseat them too). Check all the plug connections by giving them a slight pull and push to reseat. Look for and insure fully seated all jumper connections. If you have a proprietary motherboard that has a riser card, make sure the connection is fully seated there too.

Now, without putting the case back together, connect your monitor, mouse and keyboard (nothing else) and power it up. See if you can get through the boot sequence - go ahead and let it run the scandisk function if it gets there (since you had to turn it off while inside Windows). If not, turn the computer off.

Now, if you only have one memory DIMM, then see if you can find a friend who'll allow you to test you DIMM on their 'known-good' system (again, I can't stress often enough, be VERY careful of ESD - these memory devices are terribly fragile!) If you have more than one DIMM (or SIMM) remove all but one memory module (DIMM or SIMM - unless you're using EDO SIMMs in which case you have to make certain you're dealing with matching pairs...). Turn on the computer and let it run a self-test on the memory you have. CMOS will complain that memory has changed, but you should get a count. If you have no memory error, turn off the computer and replace another module. Repeat the tests until either you've isolated the problem module or determined that there really is no problem.

Let me know if this helps. There are many more steps, this is a beginning in troubleshooting a suspected memory problem.

Laz

[astro]

OK LazMan, I will try all this. I just couldn't understand why you could press F1 and continue as nothing was wrong. I figured if the memory was bad it would nit even start much less load windows. Thanks

Well, I downloaded on my other PC a copy of TUFFTEST and it said it was my ram. 2 day old Ram. I borrowed some from this PC and corrected the problem. Now it appears that my CDROM has died. Also suppose to be new from EBAY. Boy, I've about had it.

[This message has been edited by astro (edited 09-21-99).]