spirittoo Posted December 18, 2008 Author Report Share Posted December 18, 2008 Okay ... just got back from my neighbor's house... has a lot of stop errors ... I uninstalled and reinstalled AVG, but when I tried to update the files I'd kept getting the stop errors ... so I went for the memory test ... finally got the cd burn to work ... well the test didn't last long at all ... no sooner than the test start it would stop and I get this message ... "unexpected Interrupt- halting ... and the test would go no further ... my guess would be the memory is indeed bad ... do you guys concur? Quote Link to post Share on other sites
CurlingSteve Posted December 18, 2008 Report Share Posted December 18, 2008 (edited) Does anyone think cleaning the dust from the case (and perhaps reseating the cards) might help?(Or was this tried a long ways back).If that's not it, I'm thinking a bad memory card.BAD POOL errors sometimes occur from mismatched cards or upgrades placed in the wrong slot.(But these usually result in repeatable and unbootable failures, not the random fails you seem to see).Was a memory upgrade involved before this all started?Would a Repair Install of XP help?Personally, I'd try booting a Knoppix (Linux) CD just to check if the hardware was OK.--------OOPS - I see reseating was suggested before (I didn't read through the entire thread, Sorry).--------Has anyone backed up the system recently?If it will boot (even for a little while) I'd suggest copying off any and every file you can.Start with any personal files (like the "My Documents" folder) and move on from there. Edited December 19, 2008 by CurlingSteve Quote Link to post Share on other sites
spirittoo Posted December 19, 2008 Author Report Share Posted December 19, 2008 The fact that her system could not do the memory test was a pretty good indication the memory is bad ... she did have XP reinstalled and the problem continued ... I've been told that when XP gets the blue screen it's because of bad hardware or drivers ... and we pretty much eliminated the drivers as being the problem ... Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Pete_C Posted December 19, 2008 Report Share Posted December 19, 2008 I would say you should post a hijackthis log on the malware board and have an analyst tell you if you are infected or not. Once they clear you; then the next thing is to boot to safe mode with networking (if you have dsl or cable or use a router) . See if there are problems there. If it does not freeze in safe mode; you know it is a driver or application running in normal mode and can begin trouble shooting from that end.If it does freeze in safe mode; then go with it probably being hardware ; so unplug and open the case, blow out the dust, remove cards (one at a time ) blowing out the dust from the slots and booting up to see if having that specific card or memory stick removed keeps it from freezing . Quote Link to post Share on other sites
shanenin Posted December 19, 2008 Report Share Posted December 19, 2008 The fact that her system could not do the memory test was a pretty good indication the memory is badI agree. If by chance she has two sticks try one at a time. If she only has one stick, it may work in the other slot. A bad memory slot will give the same symptoms as a bad stick of memory. The memory and slot may be good. Their is a small change reseating it(taking it in and out) may solve the problem. With all that said, with the highest probability, the ram just want bad. As a general rule, in our shop, we test both the hard drive and ram before doing any other diagnosis. Those procedures save us lots of time and head aches. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
spirittoo Posted December 19, 2008 Author Report Share Posted December 19, 2008 I would say you should post a hijackthis log on the malware board and have an analyst tell you if you are infected or not. Once they clear you; then the next thing is to boot to safe mode with networking (if you have dsl or cable or use a router) . See if there are problems there. If it does not freeze in safe mode; you know it is a driver or application running in normal mode and can begin trouble shooting from that end.If it does freeze in safe mode; then go with it probably being hardware ; so unplug and open the case, blow out the dust, remove cards (one at a time ) blowing out the dust from the slots and booting up to see if having that specific card or memory stick removed keeps it from freezing .Well ... I can't do the hijackthis because I can't get that far with it ... I tried several times to update the virus definitions so I could do what you suggested, but I kept getting the stop error messages ... so I doubt I will be able to check for malware ... I can do nothing in safe mode as far as networking ... so I can't check that either ... I feel certain that because not only couldn't it pass the memory test, but I got the halting message right away ... that's a pretty good indicator of memory failure for me ... I could see if she will let me open it and see if there is one stick or two ... they have 512mb ... if so I will test each one ... but it won't matter because they will both have to be replaced ... the higher mb memory is more easy to get ... Quote Link to post Share on other sites
spirittoo Posted December 19, 2008 Author Report Share Posted December 19, 2008 Update ... I did as was suggested with the memory ... She had two sticks ... I took out one and tested the other ... it was bad ... I checked the other stick it was good ... I checked the slot the bad memory came out of ... it was good ... so I'm ordering new memory for her ... Thanks to all those that posted ... I will let you know once I get the memory and install it what happens ... Quote Link to post Share on other sites
spirittoo Posted December 23, 2008 Author Report Share Posted December 23, 2008 PROBLEM SOLVEDI got the memory sticks yesterday ... I got two 512mb ... so now she has twice the memory she had before ... I was able to upgrade the virus definitions ... but there was a problem ... after updating I would have a warning the the update manager was disabled ... and the firewall kept getting switched off ... so I uninstalled and reinstalled AVG free ... I got it to install when the memory was bad, but it never finished ... so I figured something didn't take ... once I reinstalled AVG I was able to update with no problems ... my neighbor are very happy ... so far ... It's been a couple of hours and no phone call so I have a feeling the problem is solved ... ... just wanted to let folks know how it turned out ... a friend told me ... God rest his Soul ... that XP is a pretty stable OS ... there are only a couple of reasons why it crashes ... driver(s) ... or hardware ... in this case it was hardware ... ... hope this help anyone with a similar problem Happy Holidays!Merry Christmas! Quote Link to post Share on other sites
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