A Failing Memory Problem?

Ever since an unfortunate accident with my laptop, I have been running
Windows 2000 on an old 166 MHz box as a temporary solution. While a
bit sluggish, it worked okay for a long while then started to crash
every once in a while-- usually right after I get on the Internet or
post something, but also on other rare occasions when getting on the
'Net wasn't involved.

I thought it might be aused by running Win2k and switched to NT4.0 but
the problem persisted even with a stable OS like NT4.0 so I then
suspected the then new 80 GB hard drive as a contributing factor. I
had problems with that ever since I first bought it and had returned
it to the vendor for a replacement. The new HD worked suspicously
liked the old one and eventually failed a month or two later. The next
drive I put in was a brand spanking new 64 GB unit that works well,
but I still have the problem of the system inexplicably crashing at
odd times.

The error message-- when I can see it-- is usually something about a
memory dump. So now I have to wonder if maybe getting a new memory
card to add to the system will help solve this problem or there are
still other possible causes? Any ideas would be appreciated.

Ron

Previously Ron <> wrote:
> Ever since an unfortunate accident with my laptop, I have been running
> Windows 2000 on an old 166 MHz box as a temporary solution. While a
> bit sluggish, it worked okay for a long while then started to crash
> every once in a while-- usually right after I get on the Internet or
> post something, but also on other rare occasions when getting on the
> 'Net wasn't involved.

> I thought it might be aused by running Win2k and switched to NT4.0 but
> the problem persisted even with a stable OS like NT4.0 so I then
> suspected the then new 80 GB hard drive as a contributing factor. I
> had problems with that ever since I first bought it and had returned
> it to the vendor for a replacement. The new HD worked suspicously
> liked the old one and eventually failed a month or two later. The next
> drive I put in was a brand spanking new 64 GB unit that works well,
> but I still have the problem of the system inexplicably crashing at
> odd times.

> The error message-- when I can see it-- is usually something about a
> memory dump. So now I have to wonder if maybe getting a new memory
> card to add to the system will help solve this problem or there are
> still other possible causes? Any ideas would be appreciated.

Well, if you get a memory dump, that does not mean the problem is
with the memory. Still, a day or two of memtest86+ might be a good
idea.

Other than that, disks cannot really be kille by anything except the
PSU. and by flaws in the disks themselves (and inadequate cooling,
obviously).

This sounds more like a problem with the mainboard or the CPU to me.

Arno

Ron schrieb:

> The new HD worked suspicously
> liked the old one and eventually failed a month or two later. The next
> drive I put in was a brand spanking new 64 GB unit that works well,
> but I still have the problem of the system inexplicably crashing at
> odd times.

Why not put in new (and bigger) memory?

DoDi

Previously Hans-Peter Diettrich <> wrote:
> Ron schrieb:

>> The new HD worked suspicously
>> liked the old one and eventually failed a month or two later. The next
>> drive I put in was a brand spanking new 64 GB unit that works well,
>> but I still have the problem of the system inexplicably crashing at
>> odd times.

> Why not put in new (and bigger) memory?

Because this may not help. In the worst case it makes real the
problem more difficult to track down.

Arno