Bad memory

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Tedster

Tedster

Posts: 5,746   +14
looks like the older gateway system I have developed some bad memory after a power bump even with surge protection.

I'm running MEM test. It found bad memory. I'm trying to isolate the bad stick.

I have 2 - 128 SDRAMS

and 1 -256 SDRAM

I've removed the 2, 128s and I'm checking the 256 with MEMTEST.

The question is, without removing the memory sticks is there a quicker way to pinpoint which stick went bad?
 
Memtest tells you the address of every error and you should be able to find the right module on older computers.

If you have the 256 in slot 0 and 128 in 1 and 2 and you get an error at ~0x120000 then your bad stick is the 128 in slot 1. 0x12000000 = 288MB in decimal so you see the problem is in the second memory stick.
 
right now I have ran each stick in slot 1 individually and they come up good when ran by themselves. When I run all 3 together I got an error.

This is weird as they were working fine for years.
 
Try one of the 128MB ones in other slots. You may have a bad slot instead of a bad stick. Also, more memory modules means longer access times. You may have to relax the memory timings a bit.
 
The BIOS on this old computer is too primitive to adjust memory timings.

I've cleaned the slots with compressed air and I've switched the order of the sticks. I'm running a retest of all slots and will see what happens.
 
ok I need some conversions

got bad memeory at 100ee388
also at 00015158
and 00019340
......

this only occurs when I add a third stick. Order of sticks does not matter. When I test each stick individually in different slots, they test ok.

Is this the sign of a bad slot?
 
Use Wndows Calculator in scientific mode. Set to Hex enter the number and switch to decimal.

100ee388 = 269MB
00015158 = 86MB
00019340 = 103MB
 
You see to have problems with the memory bus. If you cannot lower the RAM speed in BIOS then you just have to settle with using only two sticks.
 
ok. Well a slot 2 must have gone bad because for YEARS I had all 3 sticks installed and they worked perfect. :mad:

I went ahead and bought a 256mb stick off ebay to replace the 2 128MB sticks.

I will place them in slots 0 and 1 . slot 2 I think has gone bad.

This is a back up computer and I bought it new in 2001. If I have any more problems with it, I'm going to part it out when I built my next computer.

I have 2 40GB HDs in it, a sound card, a nice DVD/ CD burner, a zip drive, and a floppy drive, all of which can be reused in a new system.

The case unfortunately is a micro ATX and the PS is only 250W which won't be good enough on a newer MB.
 
well I replaced the two sticks with two 256MB sticks ran MEMTEST with no problems.

Still having same issues. I am thinking the MB might have gone bad. Any comments?
 
What speed are each of your SDRAMs? PC66, 100 or 133? What chipset are you using on your motherboard?

All I can tell you is that PC133 and 440BX aren't good friends :mad: (I've got two computers that have the same freezing problems, caused by PC133.) That's why I wonder why people tell Intel chipsets are good and VIA chipset sucks. My two AMD systems run on VIA chipsets and I never saw a BSOD on these unless it was a software problem.(Or on my XP 2000+, a problem somewhere with SATA controller, Windows and SATA HDD)
 
Well I'm not getting BSOD, I'm just getting system hangs when memory above 256MB is being used even though both sticks test ok.
 
First, my computer was only freezing like yours. Then, I was getting BSODs, crashing more often, I kept this memory until I was unable to install Adobe Reader, Sun Java, everything using Windows Installer. Since I removed the PC133, it works like a charm now, except there's only a little memory.

Sad but true, PC133 memory staying too much time on a 440BX mainboard will crash in every computer you will put it in. The PC133 I was talking about in the previous paragraph is now dead for real. I can't even use it on a PC133 mainboard. 440BX slowly destructs any PC133 you will put on it.

I never saw a memory test telling my PC133 memory was bad.

Oh, and I was about to forget. The memory I'm talking about was detected PC133 by Dr. Hardware on my 440BX, but was marked PC100 on it. Strange ... :suspiciou

250w PSU? surely not enough for one of these new video cards and CPUs, but my Palomino XP 2000+ & GeForce Ti4200 are running on this without a single problem.(It's not even turning hot and it's silent, even if it's a standard PSU)
 
um. My board isn't a 440BX. It's a micro ATX MSI 6330. I've gotten to the point where I don't want to throw any more money into the old computer. I'm going to use it for parts when I bulit my next system. The zip drive, CD rom, sound card and floppy are relatively new and reusable. I can sell the Ram, graphics card, and micro ATX case.
 
440BX is not the mainboard, it's a chipset. What CPU do you run? If it's a Pentium 2 or a Slot 1 Celeron, then most chances that you have this chipset.
 
You can use PC133. Maybe your slot just turned bad. You can try to put a memory bar just in the 3rd slot to see if the computer crashes(You can do this since SDRAM). Maybe cleaning the contacts will help, but since it happened because of a power bump, maybe not.

My computer is about as old as yours and runs DDR. I don't think you should invest in an SDRAM computer if you're not going to keep it as a secondary computer. It's easy to sell, even with a low amount of memory and I think 384MB is more than enough for it. (I run Win2k on an Athlon XP 2000 and I never go over 256MB, even if I have 512MB.)
 
tried that. It seems to work, but if I add more than 256mb the computer crashes. The computer originally had 512mb that worked for years


I have even used a newer stick of memory.
 
yeah, oh well, at least it was my old computer. I have my new computer double protected with a surge protector and an UPS attached to that.
 
Are they newer than 1997? Older surge protectors have some components that can take fire(New ones too), but they're generally near to some flammable plastic. New ones corrected this problem.
 
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