Hardware Malfunction???

Gamepsyched

Gamepsyched

New Member
This has happened twice to me while playing Crysis what is it.

A message pops up on a blue screen saying exactly this:


***Hardware malfunction

Call your hardware vendor for support

NMI: parity check / Memory parity error

*** The system has halted ***



It says hardware malfunction but when i restart my computer i can play crysis again. What exactly is malfunctioning and why??

Thank You
 
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That's likely a defect with memory if any hardware fault is being seen. A bad dimm will cause that type of error as well as the video card or cache memory on the board itself when using onboard graphics. Once the system is restarted the active ram is cleared and you simply start the game normally all over again.

Memtest and a few other diagnostic tools are available for seeing if memory errors are being seen. The usual option for a desktop case is to try each one of a pair of dimms or in the case of four 512s each one alone to see how things run. If problems surface with only one of the dimms in at the time it's likely faulty and needing replacement.

For the MS information on that type of error look over the page at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/222973
 
Thanks and the ram in my signature isnt the ram i have. The G.Skill arrives in a day or so. So im doing the test.

How do i use the test. It is in ISO form right now and i open it with daemon toold but still cant run it. what do i do?
 
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Memtest was always originally run from a boot floppy being a dos type tool there. Later you could create bootable cd-rs for that. With a Vista full version disk when booting up from that you will now see memtest as an option there before proceeding the installer or repair tools.

Microsoft produced their own downloadable free diagnostic tool seen at http://oca.microsoft.com/en/windiag.asp Surprisingly that makes one of the top 4 free memory tools as seen in the article on the subject at http://pcsupport.about.com/od/toolsofthetrade/tp/memorytest.htm
 
PC eye said:
Memtest was always originally run from a boot floppy being a dos type tool there. Later you could create bootable cd-rs for that. With a Vista full version disk when booting up from that you will now see memtest as an option there before proceeding the installer or repair tools.

Microsoft produced their own downloadable free diagnostic tool seen at http://oca.microsoft.com/en/windiag.asp Surprisingly that makes one of the top 4 free memory tools as seen in the article on the subject at http://pcsupport.about.com/od/toolsofthetrade/tp/memorytest.htm
Click to expand...

so i still dont have a cd to put it on ... so is there one that i dont need a cd or floppy (cause i dont have floppy drive)
 
The Micro-Scope tool is a software that comes on it's own cd there. MemTest not memtest86 the free Linux tool runs while 98/ME/2000/XP are runniing by bringing up it's own small window for entering the amount of memory to test. http://www.snapfiles.com/get/memtest.html

If you were running Vista the new version sees it's own memory tester besides memtest on the installation disk under Adminstrative Tools in the control panel. The guide on that is seen at http://articles.techrepublic.com.com/5100-10877_11-6169357.html

For most 3rd party tools for XP however you are kind of strapped there besides running each dimm separately to see the same problems are still seen. There are some programs for running iso images on a virtual drive when you can't boot from a burned cd or floppy. I've never tried running memtest by using the virtual dos tool DOSBox quite yet.
 
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