XP or hardware problem??

J

jbroca2

New Member
I recently bought a new 17" lcd monitor. I used it for a few days, and then I left for a vacation for a week and left my computer on the entire time. When I got back my computer would not turn on. It appeared to be on, but would not boot up. (my computer's specs are listed below) I had 2 sticks of 256 ram (older), and one stick of 512(newer). Eventually after removing the 2 sticks of 256 the computer would turn on. I assumed that the ram was just bad, but it seems odd that 2 sticks would go out at the same time. After this, I reformated my harddrive and put a fresh copy of windows xp pro. Durning the installation, or right around the end of it, I got a windows STOP error message (dont remember which one exactly). I finally got windows installed, and the system seemed to be working well. (except those 2 sticks of ram) Except sometimes, randomly I get a windows STOP error and have to restart. Last one I got was an 0x0..7. But I also got a few of the other ones. Also my dvd/cd burner will not burn cd's or dvd's (however,it does read both). Everything worked well before the reformat.
Sorry about the long explination.
Does anyone know what the problem could be, or anything that would fix this.

COMPUTER :
athlon xp 2500 barton
biostar m7ng 400 (or something like that) mother board
512MB value ram
120GB western digital
thermaltake 420 or 450 W psu
lite-on dvd/cd burner
samsung dvd/cd reader
floppy drive
128MB graphics card (will post exactly what kind later)
 
you should check some of your hardware first. Download and boot to memtest86+, let it run for at least 4 passes, more if time allows, if you get any red, you've still got bad memory...
 
ok i ran memtest a few days ago, but I only let it run like once. I will try and let it run more and see what that does. I will also try and put the not working and wo rking ram in a different computer to see if it works
 
I ran memtest 86 for 5 passes and in test 8 there was 1187 errors (runtime was about 2 hours). If this means that my memory is bad, then is it possible or likely for 3 sticks of ram to go out at the same time? can a mother board mess up ram? what else should I do?
 
you can run the test on each individual stick until you are sure which of them is bad. If all are, then you have no choice but to buy new memory. I've seen all sticks go bad before...
 
I ran it with only one stick in, because I assumed since it wouldnt even start up with the other two they were gone...So is it possible that something is wrong with the motherboard that caused the ram to die? Or is it more likely that all three sticks of ram just died? Could the bad ram be a reason why my burner wont burn cd's or dvd's anymore?
thanks
 
bad ram will cause errors pretty much anywhere in windows, whenever anything uses the bad portions of ram...

ram dies usually because of heat or age, or you could have just got some bad chips (see if the ram is still under the manufacturer's warranty).

Motherboards are not going to cause your ram to go bad, unless it's an electrical surge, but usually then your PWS and/or your motherboard are toast as well.
 
thanks, I am gonna use a 512 that works from a friend and make sure it works before I buy new ram. I was thinking that I would buy 2 512 sticks of corsair value ram hopefully these work better than the generic sticks that broke...thanks for all the info
 
I used 2 different sticks of working ram from another computer on mine and it would not load up. with one of the sticks, it would just start loading and then keep rebooting. With the other stick, it would start booting and then i would get a blue screen error message. Although it would not start up with these two ram sticks, it still boots up with the 512 stick that had errors. Also my ram worked in another computer fine (although i did not run memtest on it .) so why would the other ram not work??
 
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