Blasted system keeps haulting

On and off since the purchase of this computer 2 years ago I've got a blue screen indicating that there has been an NMI parity mem check error and that the system has haulted.
At first I though that the system didn't have enough virtual ram so I changed that. Things seemed to work fine for a while. Then it started happening again. So I though maybe it was the ram itself so I bought new RAM and swaped it out for the old RAM which also double the RAM amount.
This also worked for a while and made things run slightly faster.
Then it started happening again.
I've isolated the problem (at least as far as I can tell) to occur when streaming video at full screen
I tried the online CS and all they could do was give me the "gonna talk big and fancy so that I sound smart even though Im not so that I can make you think I gave you a real answer but all I really did is say I've got no clue" speach.

So Im hoping someone here understands what is happening to my system and has a solution for it.

Here's hoping someone can help

Fry

 

Somewhere in your machine you have bad memory. It could be a bad memory stick, it could be the memory cache built into your cpu, or it could be the memory on a video card.

Given your description, I am leaning toward video ram on your video card.

In some cases it could be a faulty driver causing an improper memory read or write, but I am much more inclined to physically defective hardware.

The reason it is so sporadic is that not all your memory is necessarily being used all the time--it is only at the moment that high memory is being used the system crash occurs.

In low usage times, the upper part of your memory is not being used

You did not specify what kind of system you have,

 

Have you tried running Memtest86+?

 

Which OS ? Linux or Windows

And blue screen - BSOD ??

 

Ok to try and answer the previous questions
Dell E1505
Core Duo 2.0GHz 667GHz
2GB 667GHz
ATI Radeon X1400 256Mb
80GB 7200rpm
WSXGA 15.4"
WinXPPro sp2

yes the blue screen was a variant of the BSOD but not the
standard one.

Ive run memtest86+ in the past but nothing showed up.

 

Is there a 'Minidump' folder in the Windows directory....

 

a what? I've never come across that before.

 

Check Drive (C) / Windows / Minidump.

 

Ok so I found it. now what?

 

(Date of the latest Minidump ? Is it close to when you were experiencing the above problems ?)

Download, Install WinDBG (Debugging Tools for Windows 32-bit Version)

 

Ok now what?

 

memtest will only check system ram....it will not check video ram, which given your description I am kind of leaning towards.

You switched out the memory dimms you said, so we know it is not there. cpu cache issues are very rare and usually fatal...nothing works.

That's why I lean toward video ram....if this were a desktop, you might swap out the video card and run it for a while.




You can try updating video drivers and see if that improves things.

 

I'll do that. If that doesn't work i'll just stop streaming at full screen.

 

Or you can upload the minidumps and let me do it....

 

yeah, all that's a bit confusing for me. so Im just gonna try to update the drivers and hope for the best.