BSOD with parity error on a system with no parity memory: what does it mean?

[ivankrakov]

Vista gave me a BSOD which said

*** Hardware Malfunction
Call your hardware vendor for support
NMI: Parity Check / Memory Parity Error
*** The system has halted ***

But the system has no parity (or ECC) memory, so a parity error is
impossible. So what is Vista really saying when it gives this error
message?

 

[Not Me]

Check your BIOS settings, I have seen improper RAM type settings in BIOS
generate similar errors.
If the motherboard/bios thinks you have RAM installed with the parity chip,
and it doesn't find it during POST, you'll get that error.
If it is booting to Vista then generating the error, you may have a
corrupted file somewhere.