PCA Forums

Help...My computer freezes up after boot to windows. I had Win2K on it, but since Norton's system works 2001 doesn't completely support Win2K, and I couldn't find the problem, I removed the HDD, and formate a different one, and installed Win98SE. Same freezing problem. I uninstalled everything I could, and got Norton's Utilities on. It shows bad memory...4 different modules all show bad at exactly the same address. These modules were good, last time i checked them (in a different computer) They are Crutial and PNY. I only put one stick in at a time, in any of the 3 slots, and Norton's always shows the Memory Fail at the same address. I really don't think all 4 are bad. I'm pretty sure it's a hardware problem (upgraded BIOS on the M/B)and probably whatever Norton's is seeing is what's causing it. BTW, the error checking during boot doesn't detect any problems. So, is my M/B bad? Any suggestions? I've spent days working on this. It worked for about a month, and then I changed mouse driver (which has be changed back and the new drive completely eliminated - and never installed on the Win98SE system) shut it down, and then the next time I turned it on, it will boot, start windows, but as soon as windows (and anything you want to put in the startup menu) finishes, the whole computer locks up. No mouse, CTL-ALT-DEL has no effect...only reset, and then ScanDisk often finds bad file allocations. (That's why i suspected a software problem orginially, but with a new HDD and different, freshly installed OS, i don't think so.) I'm guessing maybe it's loading something into the bad memory location, and can't get it back out correctly. Any suggestions?? I really can't afford a new M/B and CPU. And it seems this configuration (Slot A) is all but obsolete now.

Thanks!,
-Rick

Not real sure what is causing your problem but I do know that you can not trust that memory checker in System Works 2001. It used to drive me nuts one time my ram would pass another time it would not. When it would not pass a reboot would fix it. Give us your system specs and maybe we can help solve the problem. Oh by the way I am not saying that you dont have a ram problem just that you cant count on Norton's ram checker.

Not sure what all you need as far as system specs, but here is what I have:
EPoX EP-7KXA M/B
AMD K7-650 CPU
Antec ATX 12V 450 Watt P/S
Savage 2000 APG Video Card
I've removed everything else from the M/B. I have a 1.44 3-1/3" Floppy, a Polaroid BurnMaster CD-RW, and a Toshiba DVD. Oh, and the current HDD is a Maxtor 40 GB, running Win98SE. The other HDD (which still has Win2K and several images, which I can't get to work either, is a Western Digital.

Anything else?? I installed the latest BIOS update off EPoX's site, along with the latest drivers.

Thanks for any help!
-Rick

I agree - System Work's memory checker is NOT reliable.

Here's a better memory tester - download DocMemory tester from here: http://www.benchmarkhq.ru/english.html?/be_memory.html