A good example of why you follow procedure when troubleshooting
Posted: Wed Jul 01, 2009 7:39 pm
My file server has been a little buggy. It tends to crash with a vague page fault BSOD for no apparent reason. Usually under strain though (copying lots of files, burning DVDs).
Ran MEMTEST on it and I immediately got a memory error (AHA!). I then tried several different DDR memory sticks I have lying around here and they all failed MEMTEST so I knew it wasn't actually bad memory.
- Tried resetting CMOS. Nada.
- Pulled all PCI cards in case one was interfering with the memory bus. Nada.
- Swapped the PSU and that fixed it much to my surprise!
I had little expectation it would work since all voltages looked good on the meter - but the meter doesn't tell you anything about spikes and fluctuations. Still, it was the next thing on the list before swapping the CPU and then just writing it off as a bad mobo.
Ran MEMTEST on it and I immediately got a memory error (AHA!). I then tried several different DDR memory sticks I have lying around here and they all failed MEMTEST so I knew it wasn't actually bad memory.
- Tried resetting CMOS. Nada.
- Pulled all PCI cards in case one was interfering with the memory bus. Nada.
- Swapped the PSU and that fixed it much to my surprise!
I had little expectation it would work since all voltages looked good on the meter - but the meter doesn't tell you anything about spikes and fluctuations. Still, it was the next thing on the list before swapping the CPU and then just writing it off as a bad mobo.