memory dump

When I play games the computer will freeze and blue screen appear, saying that in order to prevent computer damage a memory dump had to occur. The only way to make it running again is to restart the computer by pressing the "power" button for some time. after that a black screen comes saying: "Memory address line failure at 000822A4, read F7F7F7B7 expecting F7F7F7F7. To resolve this issue, try to reseat the memory." I have tried to reseat the memory, nothing. Does this mean that one of my memory sticks (I have 2x1 Gb) is broken. Does it have anything to do with the paging file size. thanks in advance.

 

We need to know the stop codes in order to determine what really is going on. Go to C:\WINDOWS\Minidump and open up the latest log. Hopefully, you'll see a line similar to this:
The bugcheck was: 0xc000021a (0xe1270188, 0x00000001, 0x00000000, 0x00000000)

Can you copy and paste that line in to here. It has the error codes which we can search to see what happened.

 

mmm, I tried to open it with a notepad, but it gives me just a whole bunch of weird signs. next the blue screen comes up, I will write down the codes. thanks.

 

sorry,I forgot that memory dumps are weird. You actually have to type commands to read that.

Try checking your system/event logs and seeing if the error is there (control panel-->administrative tools-->event viewer-->system error).

 

yes, that seemed to work. here's what I've found: 0x1000000a (0x00000000, 0x00000002, 0x00000001, 0x8052191c). here's another one: 0x0000004e (0x0000008f, 0x000527ba, 0x0007ac7a, 0x00000000). I really hope that will help to resolve this issue. thanks a lot for your efforts.

 

okay, i did a bit of searching and the second code looks like it is assocated with bad memory. I didn't really come up with anything on the first code.

There are several software applications to test your memory for errors/problems. Memtest86, Windows Memory Diagnostics, etc. I've never used either of those, so i can't tell you which is better, but most users recommend Memtest.

If you haven't reformated, then you can choose to run the diagnostics test that Dell has on your system. Reboot and press F8, and in the 1 time boot menu, it should give you the option to run the diagnostic test. This will run series of tests on all of your hardware to determine if there are any errors.

 

Are these aftermarket sticks of RAM or did you get them with your Dell? It is possible that one of the sticks of RAM isn't working right. Like SG said though, you should run some tests and check for errors in the system memory. If you get any, it's a good time to talk to Dell. If its an aftermarket upgrade, you should figure out what stick is bad, and return/exchange it.

 

yeah, I got the memory sticks with the laptop. well, after one of the crashes it ran an overall test, and it said that the memory fine. however, as soon as i get to my laptop I'll dowload the memtest and check for the errors.
I dunno, but is it possible that it has something to do with the virtual memory and size of the paging file? because, it seems that it started to do that after I allowed system to choose the size of this file. and to be more precise, the first time a memory dump occured after a Steam update occured and I played some Day of Defeat afterwards.

 

Well good news is that your memory is covered under warranty, so you can call dell and they will send you a replacement.

I honestly don't know. If the tests showed that there was no problem, then it really is hard to tell since one of those error codes was directly tied into the RAM failing. You could change your setting where your laptop is not allowed to choose the size of paging file and virtual memory. That might fix the problem.

Does this only happen when you are playing games? Also what are the specs of your system?

 

yeah, that's the only time it does it. however, yesterday I was playing CS: Source and America's Army for about an hour and nothing happened (usually it just took like 5-10 for the crash to occur). but today, after I reinstalled drivers for the chipset and restarted my computer I got a black screen with a writing similar to the one in my fist post. I had to restart the copm for couple times before it worked again. so I just figured that the problem still existed. here are the specs: inter core duo 1.83, 2 gb 533 Mhz RAM (2x 1 Gb), 100Gb hard drive, radeon X 1400. and will I have to send the whole laptop to dell if I need to replace the memory or they will simply send me one?

 

I wonder if your video card is having problems supporting the games, and causing the errors. You have good specs for gaming, outside of the graphics card.

They'll send you the memory sticks. With simple stuff like RAM, keyboards, HDD, they just send it to you.

How many processess do you have running right now? You might just be overloading your memory if you haven't reformatted yet.

 

I reformatted it as soon as I got it. and I have like 23 processes.

 

okay, that is definately not causing the problem then.

I did some more searching. There is a possiblity that it might be a driver or bad RAM. Are all of your drivers installed properly? You don't have any devices in the device manager missing a driver?

 

I am kind of more inclined to think that this was caused by a driver. in device manager I don't have drivers for Ethernet controller and 3 Bus Controllers. all of them fall into the same category, so I thought that maybe I don't have drivers for the motherboard or something. but I wasn't able to find the needed drivers. I have downloaded and installed everything from the Dell site, but still those devices are missing a driver. however, those were without drivers for quite a bit of time ( I got my laptop on June 15 and reformatted it right away) and it didn't cause any troubles.
Maybe I should just format the partition where the Windows is at and reinstall it, and all the drivers. because I was messing with video card driver for and that could have caused the trouble.

 

Yeah, messing with the video card driver might have caused problems. If you want to, you can reformat and start over again. If you continue to have problems, I would call dell and see about getting replacement for your RAM. They shouldn't give you any trouble.

 

that's what I'll do. thank you very much for your help. I really appreciate it.

 

LOL, i don't think i helped much. I honestly can't figure out what is going on if your memtest passed. Let us know what happens.

 

it happened again. now I got a chance to look at the blue screen and read everything. it said PFN_LIST_CORRUPT. also: 0x0000004E (0x0000008F, 0xFFFFFFBF, 0x0004B833, 0x00000000). Well, I'll just reinstall Windows and see what happens.

 

okay. I'll try looking up some more errors on that.

 

well, I've just ran a diagnostic utility that came with windows cd, and according to it the memory was all right. so, I think that the problem has to be in drivers. but I don't really feel like reinstalling windows. is there any way to completely uninstall all the drivers? do I have to do it through device manager? and do you know what a "Base System Device" can be? coz I don't have driver for that, and don't know where to look for it.

 

There's no way to easily uninstall all drivers as far as I know. Next time you reformat, create another partition and have only Windows on it - install all your other programs and have all data on the larger partition so you don't loose everything when you reformat.

 

The base system drivers is the ricoh drivers.

Have you installed Notebook System Software (located under system utilities and configurations)? Have you reflashed your BIOS?

Since you messed with your video card driver, I would reinstall it. You don't have to uninstall it. Just run the .exe file and it should uninstall and install the newer driver.

 

ok, I contacted dell support. a guy adviced me firstly to swap around the memory cards and try to locate the not working one. after that run the thorough memory test located on dell driver disk. ok, I swapped the memory and one of the sticks was not performing well. still, not confident if the problem is memory itself or memory slots. currently, running the test. a loooong night ahead.