I think I have bad memory but not sure. Ran memtest86 and it freezes

C

codylent

New Member
Hello,

I have a Dell 1764 laptop with Windows 7 installed. When I start it up it goes to a screen that says "Windows Error Recovery" and asks if I want to launch "Startup repair". If I launch startup repair, start windows normally, or attempt to startup in safe mode my computer freezes at the startup screen and shuts off. I hit F12 for the boot options and select the diagnostics option and it freezes at the memory test! So then I downloaded memtest86 and made a boot cd and even it freezes at Test #1. I even tried to startup with the Windows 7 CD and it loads files and then just shuts down at the startup screen! I think the memory is bad but I am not an expert. Could it be the processor or something? I was gonna just buy a stick of 4GB memory to try but that is $50 bucks and that would suck if that wasn't the problem. I am basically just wanting to get some opinions or advice. Thanks guys!
 
It could be a defective hard drive, motherboard, RAM or something else. I would not go out and buy new RAM yet.

I have no time to tell you about troubleshooting presently. I will be back on later or maybe someone else can help you.
 
I have a diagnostic & driver disc that came with the laptop. If has the option to do a memory test, system test or test by the specific problem I am having. I went in there and did a full test of everything besides the memory and it said everything passed except the charging cable I was using. Then I went back to the beginning and did the memory test portion and it shuts down the computer a few seconds after it starts.
 
If you have more than one stick of ram installed, you may want to try testing with just one stick installed. If it still freezes, try the other stick by itself.
 
That solved it!! I took 1 stick out and ran memtest86 and the computer just shut off immediately! So then I swapped em and tried it and now it completed the test with no errors! That was a very wise suggestion. Thanks for all your help!
 
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