problem with ram, mobo or somethign else??

[Hamza]

I have just put together a basic system using the following piece of hardware,
EpOX 8K3a
Maxtor 60 Gb Hd,
Nvida Ge Force 4 MX440 64m Graphics Card
256 meg 2700 DDR ram
Liton DVD rom

Booted and set up bios all is ok. Tried installing xp, goes thru and at setting up windows, it blue screens on me something about PAGE FAULT NON PAGE FAULT ERROR.

check all device drivers etc etc.

I thought I'd try installing win98. went thru ok until "initializing driver setup" and it blue screeened on my giving me fatal exception errors. I have used my old pci graphics card and my old 2gb drive and old cdrom but have not been able to install windows. I have disables most ports and the on-board sound card still no avail.

Any ideas anyone please?

[sKiT]

sounds like a difficult spot to be in. First off...Welcome to TechIMO The things you have tried already are basically what I would have done. If you have another DDR stick....maybe try that. I would say its either your RAM, mobo or CPU. But the RAM would be the next thing I checked as its the easiest. if all else fails, go buy a stick of RAM..save the receipt....try to do your install again with it and then take it back. Either way you will know if its good or not. If the problem persists its not the RAM. If the install goes smoothly then you have a bad stick o' RAM good luck

[Theophylact]

Definitely try known-good RAM first. It could be the motherboard, but it's probably memory.

[Hamza]

Thanks guys. I am gonna run some software from www.simmtest.com to see if it is the memory. Everything else points to it to.
I'll keep you posted!

[piyopiyo13]

How are you going to run simmtester when your computer has no OS? Undo Quick-Post in the CMOS Setup Utility. This will do a more thorough RAM test at POST.

[Theophylact]

Runs from the floppy.

Quote:

Originally posted by piyopiyo13
How are you going to run simmtester when your computer has no OS? Undo Quick-Post in the CMOS Setup Utility. This will do a more thorough RAM test at POST.

The software from simmtester does a much more thorough testing of the RAM than the crude BIOS testing. It's the best software testing you can do, and gives nearly all errors you can find by this method. The only surer way to test a stick of RAM is with a hardware tester (like those sold by simmtester! ) And like Theo said it loads via floppy, so you only need a working floppy boot disk.

BTW the correct URL is www.simmtester.com. Seems to be down at the moment, which is unusual.

Cheers
Mick

[John C. Dechon]

Some would say MemTest86 is better than DocMemory (simmtester.com). I don't know...they returned different results for me and others -- at least those of us using these software memory-testers on AMD computers with Athlons.

I DO know that Memtest86 showed "errors" in whatever DDR modules I put in my K7S5A whereas DocMemory found no such errors. Whatever, in the end there was nothing wrong with my DDR modules, my PS or mobo...I'm using them all now.

I've been told that MemTest is not "wrong," it's just that it subjects the memory to some "weird situations" it would likely never see in real life, so although the memory is "good" for the most part, it can give errors if that particular situation happens. But then MemTest also states something like "this [errors in tests 5 and 8] doesn't mean your memory is bad, it just means that any errors are probably because your DDR can not keep up with Athlon speeds...get better quality memory."

Well, using MemTest on an AMD Athlon system USUALLY produces errors on test 5 and 8, sometimes also errors at the end of test 4. That's a "known issue" on the MemTest website. It doesn't matter what brand memory you have.

Still, I don't trust MemTest saying my memory "isn't quality enough to keep up with Athlon speeds." I'm talking about errors with Micron, Mushkin, Samsung, Infineon memory modules...you name it. They ALL can't be incapable of "keeping up."

In short, I can't say I trust software memory testers -- especially MemTest -- but if you really do have some bad RAM, either should tell you.

I'd go with DocMemory though.

John D.

[ragtop]

Quote:

Originally posted by John C. Dechon
Well, using MemTest on an AMD Athlon system USUALLY produces errors on test 5 and 8, sometimes also errors at the end of test 4. That's a "known issue" on the MemTest website. It doesn't matter what brand memory you have.

Still, I don't trust MemTest saying my memory "isn't quality enough to keep up with Athlon speeds." I'm talking about errors with Micron, Mushkin, Samsung, Infineon memory modules...you name it. They ALL can't be incapable of "keeping up."

Hmm... I get no errors from memtest 86 on my machine with Mushkin DDR / Athlon system.

Hamza: If the RAM checks out, be sure to try installing Windows from a different CD drive. The compressed files on a Windows disc are particularly difficult to read, and sometimes a weak drive can read most other discs - but not a Windows disc. I've had similar problems in the past due to a bad drive.

[Planetspectre]

This may help:

STOP 0x0000008e" Error Message During Windows XP Setup (Q315335)