Memtest 86+ Died...Now What?

[M and D]

[Win XP Home SP 2]

From time to time I get the message "The instruction at 0x.... referenced memory at 0x..... The memory could not be read."

From my research I learned that such a message could be a sign of faulty RAM. This would be a surprise to me, since I've been using the same memory modules for 4 years...but what do I know?

So I ran Memtest 86+. The darn thing froze at Test #3 [Moving inversions, 8 bit pattern], and the only way out was to press the power switch. I tried this three times with the same result.

According to the Memtest 86+ ReadMe:

"Memtest86 sometimes just dies with no hints as to what went wrong. Without any details it is nearly impossible to fix these failures. Fixing these problems will require debugging assistance on your part. There is
no point in reporting these failures unless you have a Linux system and would be willing to assist me in finding the failure."

That's great. I'm looking at a possible RAM failure and the diagnostic test is also a failure. Where do I go from here?

(If it matters, I only see the "instruction at 0x.... referenced memory at 0x" message occasionally, and in each case it happened after closing my browser.)

Thanks for your help.

Daddy

 

[Kerry Brown]

[Win XP Home SP 2]

From time to time I get the message "The instruction at 0x....
referenced memory at 0x..... The memory could not be read."

From my research I learned that such a message could be a sign of
faulty RAM. This would be a surprise to me, since I've been using the
same memory modules for 4 years...but what do I know?

So I ran Memtest 86+. The darn thing froze at Test #3 [Moving
inversions, 8 bit pattern], and the only way out was to press the
power switch. I tried this three times with the same result.

According to the Memtest 86+ ReadMe:

"Memtest86 sometimes just dies with no hints as to what went wrong.
Without any details it is nearly impossible to fix these failures.
Fixing these problems will require debugging assistance on your part.
There is
no point in reporting these failures unless you have a Linux system
and would be willing to assist me in finding the failure."

That's great. I'm looking at a possible RAM failure and the
diagnostic test is also a failure. Where do I go from here?

(If it matters, I only see the "instruction at 0x.... referenced
memory at 0x" message occasionally, and in each case it happened
after closing my browser.)

Thanks for your help.

Daddy

Try a different memory tester.

http://oca.microsoft.com/en/windiag.asp

There's also a couple of different ones on the Ultimate Boot CD.

http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/

 

[Mike Hall - MS MVP Windows Shell/User]

Try this one.. http://oca.microsoft.com/en/windiag.asp

--
Mike Hall
MS-MVP Windows Shell/User



[Win XP Home SP 2]

From time to time I get the message "The instruction at 0x.... referenced
memory at 0x..... The memory could not be read."

From my research I learned that such a message could be a sign of faulty
RAM. This would be a surprise to me, since I've been using the same memory
modules for 4 years...but what do I know?

So I ran Memtest 86+. The darn thing froze at Test #3 [Moving inversions, 8
bit pattern], and the only way out was to press the power switch. I tried
this three times with the same result.

According to the Memtest 86+ ReadMe:

"Memtest86 sometimes just dies with no hints as to what went wrong. Without
any details it is nearly impossible to fix these failures. Fixing these
problems will require debugging assistance on your part. There is
no point in reporting these failures unless you have a Linux system and
would be willing to assist me in finding the failure."

That's great. I'm looking at a possible RAM failure and the diagnostic test
is also a failure. Where do I go from here?

(If it matters, I only see the "instruction at 0x.... referenced memory at
0x" message occasionally, and in each case it happened after closing my
browser.)

Thanks for your help.

Daddy

 

[M and D]

Many thanks to you and to Kerry. I will certainly give those programs a try if necessary...
BUT...
I just noticed something that may be relevent.

I just now got another one of those messages, and the title of the window was:

Acrobat IEHelper: iexplore.exe - Application Error

I remember seeing that title on the window when this happened in the past. Could it be that there's nothing wrong with my RAM, but the problem lies with pesky Acrobat Reader [v7.0.5]?

Daddy

 

[Dave Patrick]

More than likely not RAM. This may help.

http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/shexview.html

--

Regards,

Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup.
Microsoft Certified Professional
Microsoft MVP [Windows]
http://www.microsoft.com/protect

:
Many thanks to you and to Kerry. I will certainly give those programs a try
if necessary...
BUT...
I just noticed something that may be relevent.

I just now got another one of those messages, and the title of the window
was:

Acrobat IEHelper: iexplore.exe - Application Error

I remember seeing that title on the window when this happened in the past.
Could it be that there's nothing wrong with my RAM, but the problem lies
with pesky Acrobat Reader [v7.0.5]?

Daddy

 

[Kerry Brown]

Many thanks to you and to Kerry. I will certainly give those programs
a try if necessary...
BUT...
I just noticed something that may be relevent.

I just now got another one of those messages, and the title of the
window was:

Acrobat IEHelper: iexplore.exe - Application Error

I remember seeing that title on the window when this happened in the
past. Could it be that there's nothing wrong with my RAM, but the
problem lies with pesky Acrobat Reader [v7.0.5]?

It may be that Acrobat Reader has a problem but that wouldn't make
memtest86+ lock up. Windows was not running when you were testing the RAM.

 

[frodo]

upgrade to Acrobat Reader 7.0.8 and see.

note that it is entirely possible that you've been running for four years
w/ "bad" ram and just didn't know it. I see it all the time, people have
random problems and running memtest reveals mem errors. [next most
frequent culprit: power supply]. Yes, ram can go bad, but most of the
time it was bad and is just now being diagnosed.

I never install an OS to a system w/o first doing a memtest to validate
the ram. 1 in 10 new builds will fail, yet moving the "bad" ram to a
different system works just fine. You have to get the MB and RAM to work
together before proceeding...

 

[M and D]

Thanks to Dave and Kerry.

I haven't been to the Nirsoft website in many years. Some real gems there. I'll think I'll try a clean install of Acrobat Reader first (v7.0.8), to see if that doesn't solve the problem.

As for Memtest86+...yes, a problem with Acrobat Reader wouldn't cause Memtest to fail. I may never find out what caused that to happen,

Thanks again for your help.

Daddy

Many thanks to you and to Kerry. I will certainly give those programs
a try if necessary...
BUT...
I just noticed something that may be relevent.

I just now got another one of those messages, and the title of the
window was:

Acrobat IEHelper: iexplore.exe - Application Error

I remember seeing that title on the window when this happened in the
past. Could it be that there's nothing wrong with my RAM, but the
problem lies with pesky Acrobat Reader [v7.0.5]?

It may be that Acrobat Reader has a problem but that wouldn't make
memtest86+ lock up. Windows was not running when you were testing the RAM.

 

[M and D]

Hmmm...the first module came installed in my machine by Dell, and the second was purchased from Crucial a few months later. I suppose it's possible that one or both were bad from the beginning, but it seems to me that I would have known about it long ago.

Daddy

 

[Kerry Brown]

Thanks to Dave and Kerry.

I haven't been to the Nirsoft website in many years. Some real gems
there. I'll think I'll try a clean install of Acrobat Reader first
(v7.0.8), to see if that doesn't solve the problem.

As for Memtest86+...yes, a problem with Acrobat Reader wouldn't cause
Memtest to fail. I may never find out what caused that to happen,

Thanks again for your help.

You're welcome. I'd forgotten about Nirsoft as well. Thanks Dave.