Memory problem or OS problem?

[AltecXP]

i have a dell laptop(from 98) running Xp when i ran2x64 chips it ran good, but i bought a new 128mb chip, it ran ok fo about 2 weeks, now if i have 128MB in dimmA and 64MB im dimmB i get a BSOD w/ something about a pagefile and "stop: 0x000000050" i looked it on MS.com it mentions a Neomagic drive in one of the articles, so i loaded on an official driver from them (deleted the MS one) and turned off acceleration like they said, but it still crashes, if i have NO chip in dimmA and one in dimmB it doesnt wanna boot fully (gets right b4 login and restarts) sometimes it dumps the memory and other times not, but when it boots after the crash it doesnt get past the bood screen it just sits there, the only thing i havent tried is the 2x64's again, but ir runds perfectly w/ JUST 1 chip in the dimmA, the onlything i can think is maybe dimmB has errors on it?

 

[redduc900]

It definitely sounds like a memory related problem. A good starting point would be to run Memtest86 3.0, which you can download from Majorgeeks here...

http://www.majorgeeks.com/download1247.html

Run Memtest on each stick individually, testing the sticks in each of the two DIMM sockets...and run through all eleven tests on each stick.

 

[jhl3]

Try the two 64's again. If the problem is solved then that may be half of your answer. find some other memory to try to see if you have good or bad results. Also laptops are kind of particular about the seating of memory. I couldn't get mine to boot until I had reseated the ram several times on a DELL.

 

[AltecXP]

thanks for the replies, i'll try the tester, ive reseated this ram SOOOOOOO many times. lol

 

[AltecXP]

i just started running Memtest86, how long does it take to run? i have 192mb

 

[Bon3thugz43v3r]

Let it loop for 2 hours or so, if you get no errors, then you're safe to say that its stable.

 

[AltecXP]

ok it passed 3 times with no errors, but im occasionally getting ntfs.sys and isapnp.sys files on boot. and now Check dist is showing 4KB in corrupted sectors. im already planning on getting a new HD for the laptop, but is there anyway to help prevent the corruption from spreading? i have already replaced the 2 files.

 

[racecar12]

Well....sorry...but it sounds like your hd is about to take a major dump.

 

[AltecXP]

figured as much

 

[fadirocks]

Check it with PowerQuest ParitionMagic 8 for errors It fixed an old 4GB from going to trash bec that drive didn't want to be formatted in fdisk of Windows & Linux but Partition magic fixed the problem and probably would fix yours
There are other partition programs but i never tried
http://www.experts-exchange.com/Operating_Systems/WinXP/Q_20853022.html and read PeteLong's comment

Good Luck