Something's fishy with the memory subsystem?

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January 11th, 2005, 08:07 PM
mortalitas

Something's fishy with the memory subsystem?

Recently I've had 2 windows 2000 boxes acting really funny. What happens is when I try to do something like add / remove programs it will hang. It will also hang randomly when working on pretty much any program.

All the systems are the same make, P3 900 Celeron's and CS65-EC MB. The video and sound are both intergrated, and I think it's shared video memory as well.

I've run gold memory tester (www.goldmemory.cz) on one of the machines and it keeps on freezing up after a certain point. I'm using sisoft sandra as well, and getting lock ups running the program.

I also have Symantec Corporate AV and have scanned both systems. Both come up neg on viruses. Used spy bot to clean out any spyware as well.

At this point I'm really thinking it's the memory subsystem. Does anyone else have any other opinions or suggestions, they'd be greatly appreciated.
January 11th, 2005, 08:16 PM
morganlefay

Did you run both your AV and Spyware scans in Safe Mode??

I have seen many machines behave this way with spyware\ worm infections.

Freezing up can be the CPU overheating too

Some things to try

MLF
January 11th, 2005, 08:38 PM
mortalitas

No I've not tried to run the scans in safe mode yet. Will give it a go now.

The reason I don't think it's software though is because the version I have of gold memory tester is a standalone bootable program that runs on it's own os ( freedos). However when I run the test on the problematic system I get lock ups. The working systems are a-okay though.

I hadn't thought of cpu over heating as well. I'll go and check the hardware monitors and see how hot it runs. The thing is, is that I can get the system to hang every time at exactly the same spot. For me it was everytime I went into add / remove programs. Would overheating cause it to hang at the same spot each time?
January 11th, 2005, 10:39 PM
foxyloxley

Quote:

Would overheating cause it to hang at the same spot each time?

No, but you haven't said how you get out of the freeze ?

Can you restart straight away ?
Do BOTH M/C's exhibit identical faults ?
At identical spot ?
have the M/C's ran OK prior to this ?
If so, when did this fault raise its ugly head ?

Also on overheating, check that there isn't a build up of dust, P3 900's are kinda old ?
check the air isn't restricted in its flow through the case.
check that the fans ARE running [if they have failed; DO NOT lube, replace]

Remove and reseat your RAM.
remove and reseat the CPU heatsink and fan.

post results back soon.
enough for now :)
January 11th, 2005, 10:51 PM
mortalitas

Quote:

Originally posted here by foxyloxley

No, but you haven't said how you get out of the freeze ?

-> Cold reboot. CTRL+ALT+Del doens't work. Gotta either press reset button or hold power switch till it turns off

Can you restart straight away ?

-> Yes if I follow the above

Do BOTH M/C's exhibit identical faults ?

-> Yes, they both hang constantly, and I can cause them both to hang at identical spots.

At identical spot ?

-> I can make them hang at the same spot. For instance, when I open up add remove programs before it even loads the full screen it's insta-hang

have the M/C's ran OK prior to this ?

-> Yes both machines were okay till about the weekend. One started to act screwy on friday, and the other on Monday. The machines are totally unuseable atm.

If so, when did this fault raise its ugly head ?

-> I believe they started to act up over the weekend. On Friday I would have 0 problems with hangs and crashes. Now it seems to happen every few minutes. My mem checker even hangs and that uses freeDos.

Also on overheating, check that there isn't a build up of dust, P3 900's are kinda old ?

-> There is some dust there. I'll bust out the dustbuster and attempt to clean it out.

check the air isn't restricted in its flow through the case.
check that the fans ARE running [if they have failed; DO NOT lube, replace]
-> Short on time today but do these two tomorrow

Remove and reseat your RAM.
-> Done, I've replaced the RAM with RAM I know 100% to be working. I can recreate the freeze at the same spot.

remove and reseat the CPU heatsink and fan.
-> will try that tomorrow

post results back soon.
enough for now :)

Thanks for the advice. ATM my main concern was the SQL server. I've got multiples of boxes with the same hardware specs so I'll just change the HD's and see if I can get that back up and running.