to Sharon F re bad RAM

[Lee]

Hi Sharon - a question for you about bad RAM causing restarts (as noted in a
previous post)...

if the RAM was the cause, would this prompt a 'stop' error (not sure on the
terminology there). I have had a couple of these instances since installing
addiitonal RAM, however, on reboot I get a message telling me I have
recovered from a serious error and the report to MS tells me I have a driver
problem.

Lee

 

[Nick Le Lievre]

Hi Sharon - a question for you about bad RAM causing restarts (as noted in a
previous post)...

if the RAM was the cause, would this prompt a 'stop' error (not sure on the
terminology there). I have had a couple of these instances since installing
addiitonal RAM, however, on reboot I get a message telling me I have
recovered from a serious error and the report to MS tells me I have a driver
problem.

It is bad ram.

 

[Sharon F]

Hi Sharon - a question for you about bad RAM causing restarts (as noted in a
previous post)...

if the RAM was the cause, would this prompt a 'stop' error (not sure on the
terminology there). I have had a couple of these instances since installing
addiitonal RAM, however, on reboot I get a message telling me I have
recovered from a serious error and the report to MS tells me I have a driver
problem.

Lee

Bad RAM can cause any number of strange symptoms. It is possible to receive
a STOP error about a driver when bad RAM is present. When I had a bad
RAM slot on my old system (RAM was fine but a slot was not right), there
were various symptoms, one of which was repeated STOP errors about the
keyboard driver. Once the motherboard was replaced (and I did nothing
about the keyboard driver), the STOP errors disappeared.

This is not to say that STOP messages are a strong indication of bad RAM.
That obviously is not true. However, I am saying that the presence of bad
RAM is an angle that should be checked if there are odd symptoms
(random restarts and/or other errors) that are normally out of character
for your setup. Especially if normal troubleshooting is not producing any
progress in the right direction.

 

[Lee]

Thanks Sharon... I'm thinking the RAM could be the issue here. Another
question then .. me being so technically minded .. the additional RAM was
put in as an extra. Would I be safe in removing the original (128) and
leaving the new (256). The techie who installed for me said the 2 would be
compatible but would run at the lower speed - that lost me, but one tends to
trust these people

Lee

 

[Alex Nichol]

if the RAM was the cause, would this prompt a 'stop' error (not sure on the
terminology there). I have had a couple of these instances since installing
addiitonal RAM, however, on reboot I get a message telling me I have
recovered from a serious error and the report to MS tells me I have a driver
problem.

It might well do. Bad RAM can result in code or data it is working
with getting corrupted. If you get such stops, it pays to turn off the
system's 'automatically restart' Control Panel - System - Advanced,
click Settings in the Startup and Recovery section. There uncheck
'automatically restart'.

You may now get a Blue screen failure instead, but at least will get
some guidance as to what is happening. If it shows consistently as a
specific file in the bottom line (usually a driver one, something.sys)
look for that (in system32\drivers) and r-click, Properties - Version
and see if there is a later version to be downloaded. If the results
seem random, then RAM is very likely