Bad Memory or bad PSU ?
in [Hardware]
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From: JG on 10 Feb 2006 06:21 Hi ! I'm working on a friend's HP Pavilion 511N system which showed signs on failure in the last few days (Windows restarting itself at any time, not booting at all, so on..). The first thing I made was to clone the HDD on another one (using TrueImage - bootable CD) then perform a chkdsk on the drive. Chkdsk found a few bad entries in the MFT but no bad sector or other sign of disk failure were found, either by TrueImage or Chkdsk. At one moment, while booting to Bart PE from the CD drive, I had a BSOD Stop C0000145 (0xC0000005): Application error, the application failed to initialize properly. On a second try, the application loaded and executed correctly Since a Google search seems to relate this Stop code to a faulty memory chip, I fired up Memtest-86 bootable CD to confirm that. I put the disk in the drive, power cycled the machine and let the test run. In the first testing minute, it found 1519 errors, all in the same address area (73-77 Mb), all with the same error bit (00000040). In the following 23 hours, *no* other error was found. My I conclude that the memory is bad ? Since errors seems to occurs only in the first minute after powering on the machine, can I suspect a bad PSU causing this problem instead ? As a side question: while chkdsk doesn't find any more errors, Windows still won't boot : the machine does it POST, I can see some disk activity, the mouse pointer appears on the screen then the machine reboots (before the Windows logo appears). Any suggestion on the next repairing steps ? Thanks.
From: Davy on 10 Feb 2006 07:30 I was in a pickle the other day....! Whether it's the same or not I dunno, mine would'nt boot turned out to be the bios battery that was a wee bit low, I can't say if this applies to you, it looked as though the HDD was duff as it kept saying disk failure, funny thing was the bios settings was ok and was getting the POST beep (Power On Self Test). I even reformatted as I could'nt even do a repair install - for no apparent reason as it turned out..! A bios reboot corrected the fault but chose to replace the battery which was on the low side. You will get the POST beep with all the drives disconnected even the HDD, the first thing to do then I'd say is to connected the HDD and try again, keep repeating til all the drives are connected. You can appreciate that there may well be many causes, like I did no doubt you think the worse when it turns out to be something simple, I reckon its the panic session what really does the damage. As you may know, when you 'power up' the bios wakes up doing it's POST, then if all OK tells the cpu to switch on and spin the HDD when windows is loaded into RAM and then you get the Welcome screen. I can't say if I am pointing you in the right direction, the best thing is always 'try' to take the logical approach and to bear my experience in mind. Davy
From: Smith on 10 Feb 2006 07:51 Does it have more than one stick of ram inside? Try them each alone, see if it'll boot. It memtest says it's bad, it's bad. Restarts are a sign of faulty memory. I had a stick go bad, my machine would randomly reboot all the time. "JG" <no-spam(a)please.com> wrote in message news:mn.517d7d62c40e38ca.33676(a)please.com... > Hi ! > > I'm working on a friend's HP Pavilion 511N system which showed signs on > failure in the last few days (Windows restarting itself at any time, not > booting at all, so on..). > > The first thing I made was to clone the HDD on another one (using > TrueImage - bootable CD) then perform a chkdsk on the drive. Chkdsk found > a few bad entries in the MFT but no bad sector or other sign of disk > failure were found, either by TrueImage or Chkdsk. > > At one moment, while booting to Bart PE from the CD drive, I had a BSOD > Stop C0000145 (0xC0000005): Application error, the application failed to > initialize properly. On a second try, the application loaded and executed > correctly > > Since a Google search seems to relate this Stop code to a faulty memory > chip, I fired up Memtest-86 bootable CD to confirm that. > > I put the disk in the drive, power cycled the machine and let the test > run. In the first testing minute, it found 1519 errors, all in the same > address area (73-77 Mb), all with the same error bit (00000040). In the > following 23 hours, *no* other error was found. > > My I conclude that the memory is bad ? Since errors seems to occurs > only in the first minute after powering on the machine, can I suspect a > bad PSU causing this problem instead ? > > > As a side question: while chkdsk doesn't find any more errors, Windows > still won't boot : the machine does it POST, I can see some disk > activity, the mouse pointer appears on the screen then the machine reboots > (before the Windows logo appears). Any suggestion on the next repairing > steps ? > > Thanks. > >
From: Gerard Bok on 10 Feb 2006 15:01 On Fri, 10 Feb 2006 06:21:14 -0500, "JG" <no-spam(a)please.com> wrote: >Since a Google search seems to relate this Stop code to a faulty memory >chip, I fired up Memtest-86 bootable CD to confirm that. > >I put the disk in the drive, power cycled the machine and let the test >run. In the first testing minute, it found 1519 errors, all in the >same address area (73-77 Mb), all with the same error bit (00000040). >In the following 23 hours, *no* other error was found. > >My I conclude that the memory is bad ? Since errors seems to occurs >only in the first minute after powering on the machine, can I suspect a >bad PSU causing this problem instead ? Try the following, if you wish. While running Memtest, the CD is not in use. Open its door a few times (if the program allows that; I didn't try it!) This causes extra power consumption and if your problem is PSU related, you can expect an increase in error while the CD mechanism is operating. >As a side question: while chkdsk doesn't find any more errors, Windows >still won't boot : the machine does it POST, I can see some disk >activity, the mouse pointer appears on the screen then the machine >reboots (before the Windows logo appears). Any suggestion on the next >repairing steps ? Windows CD, recovery console ? -- Kind regards, Gerard Bok
From: kony on 10 Feb 2006 18:33 On Fri, 10 Feb 2006 06:21:14 -0500, "JG" <no-spam(a)please.com> wrote: <snip> >I put the disk in the drive, power cycled the machine and let the test >run. In the first testing minute, it found 1519 errors, all in the >same address area (73-77 Mb), all with the same error bit (00000040). >In the following 23 hours, *no* other error was found. > >My I conclude that the memory is bad ? Since errors seems to occurs >only in the first minute after powering on the machine, can I suspect a >bad PSU causing this problem instead ? Doubtful, it would seem more likely you have either a temperature related problem like circuit board cracks (could be in memory or motherboard itself) or your motherboard capacitors are bad and do better after being warmed up. Open the case and check all cards, cables, etc. Examine the board for failed capacitors- usually the ones about the CPU socket are the most prone to failure but also examine those around the chipset and memory slots. You might also consider letting the system stay off, cooling down completely then gently warming the interior with a hairdryer for a couple minutes before powering up & running memtest. If all else fails, do you have any memory related settings in the bios? Doubtful being an OEM system but if you do, try adjusting them to more conservative settings. > > >As a side question: while chkdsk doesn't find any more errors, Windows >still won't boot : the machine does it POST, I can see some disk >activity, the mouse pointer appears on the screen then the machine >reboots (before the Windows logo appears). Any suggestion on the next >repairing steps ? No point in trying to run windows with that many memory errors still present- perhaps better windows doesn't load as if it did, you could end up with massive file corruption- but then this may have already happened... so you need to get those errors resolved and then see if windows will boot, and if it never does, the OS /etc may need reinstalled.
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