Compaq Presario R4000 memory problems

[davidqxo]

Over the past few weeks I've been getting intermittent BSOD crashes with "unexpected IRQ" or "page fault in non-page area" errors. These were often accompanied on reboot by POST beep code 1-3-4-3, error in first 512K of base memory.

Memtest86 fails after a few passes with the unexpected IRQ error.

Replaced both internal and external OEM memory modules (Hynix 512MB PC2700S DDR 333MHz) with two PNY 1GB PC2700 333MHz modules.

Things are worse now. Getting POST beep codes of 1-4-1-1 and 3 and 2, all having to do with memory.

Questions: 1) What is the significance of "S" in PC2700S? 2) Are the internal and external modules the only memory to worry about, or is there some other motherboard memory that could be causing this? 3) Suggestions?

Thank you.

 

[Tmagic650]

Pull the hard drive and see if the laptop tries to POST normally

 

[davidqxo]

Pulled the hard drive. Computer attempts to boot but concludes with several iterations of the error:
Intel UNDI, PXE-2.0 (build 082)
PXE-M61: Media test failure, check cable
PXE-M0F: Exiting PXE ROM

"Intel"? That's weird. It has an AMD cpu. Regardless, that looks like what it should be doing. Right?

 

[davidqxo]

Silly me. Not finding the HD or a CD it attempted to boot off the LAN.

Anyway, that part of POST seems okay.

 

[Tmagic650]

Yes,
that says the motherboard is ok... The hard drive either needs a low-level format or it needs to be replaced

 

[davidqxo]

"...hard drive ... needs a low-level format or ... to be replaced"
Gee, what a pain, but doable. But how do you arrive at that conclusion with the beep codes all referring to memory problems? And, for example, it will sometimes lock up at the stage of:
"Press ESC to change boot order
Press <F10> to enter set up ..."
I presume that at that point it hasn't even tried to access the hard drive. Also, I can boot up memtest86 from CD and that generally crashes after a few passes with an unexpected IRQ error. I wouldn't expect that it is accessing the hard drive at that point.

 

[Tmagic650]

The hard drive may be causing the motherboard to act strangely, like causing memory symptoms. Since you have already investigated the memory, it might be easier to simply replace the hard drive and keep the old one just incase you can salvage data later

 

[davidqxo]

I removed the hard drive and booted up MEMTEST86 from CD. After seven passes it crashed with an unexpected interrupt error.

I think I'm facing a motherboard problem in the memory controller area.

So now I guess my question becomes, should I (can I) replace the motherboard, or would I be better off buying a new computer?