bad ram?

my pc died a week ago and i have been struggling with finding out why ever since. i first thought it was the hd but i am now leaning more towards bad ram. i did not have that much, 384mb i believe, and i think i was overusing it with file convesions. i have been letting memtest86 run for the past 24 hours and this is what it came up with. any help is much appreciated.

test 3
pass 3
failing address 00007be1288
good fdfdfdfd
bad fdfdfd7d
err-bits 000000
count 7
chan 1

thanks in advance

 

oh and if anyone needs a little more backup info i first thought it was a windows issue because when the pc started up i got a black screen saying ntoskrnl.exe was missing or corrupt. after failing many times at replacing that file successfully i tried to reinstall xp which got to the point of rebooting itself and now it just continuously restarts after about 3 seconds of the windows xp start up splash. and sometimes you can see a split second glimpse of the blue screen right before restart with some technical jargon i can't read let alone understand. thanks again.

 

One of your RAM sticks is failing for sure/becoming out of tolerance for the motherboard (I call it RAM going soft).

It has had an issue reading the data addressed.

A quick check also ,disable 'quick enable' in the CMOS, see how far it counts during post, if it stops early and starts beeping, then it is having a problem.
If you retry this, you will probably find that it stops at random places.
The point that it stops on, is the actual amount of RAM that the BIOS will see, therefore it is the amount that windows will see.

When windows reboots, basically it is trying to address certain places of the RAM, but cannot either access/read it, therefore you get a 'brief' BSOD flash, before everything is dumped.

Do as ddp suggested and try each alternative stick, you should be able to find the culprit....................

This can also occur with incompatible RAM aswell, but I see from your post that you have used it ok previously............

RAM does have a limited lifespan and the more you use it the quicker it degrades................fact of PC life, components will fail from time to time.
The secret is to find out which part you have to replace........and what ddp suggested should highlight the dodgy blighter..................................

 

thanks for the reply. unfortunately the title underneath my name could not be more accurate. i am a total newbie to all of this and am learning as i go. i apologize for my newbness and for the fact that i have no idea how many sticks of ram i have and have never opened a computer case before.

so with that being said, what is my best option here? is it worth my while to keep on trying with what i have and open the case or will that just open pandora's box to a myriad of other things that could go wrong with my lack of experience?

or...am i just going to end up having to buy more ram anyway?

again please excuse my newbness. thank you.

 

Yeah, [bold]Open the box[/bold]

Always worth having a look inside, get yourself familiar with the layout and components.
The RAM sticks will be stood up off the board and you will almost certainly have 2 sticks.

BTW:Be safe, unplug the PC from the mains outlet first.

 

ok here goes...anyone got a hammer? jk

 

And you thought you were joking when you said that.....LOL, eh ddp, a hammer does come in handy from time to time..........

 

ha actually a flathead screwdriver was my tool of choice and it did come in very handy! hey thanks for all of the help so far. i don't think i would have had the cohones (spelling?) to open that thing up otherwise.

so it turns out i have a 128mb ram and a 256mb ram card. i used an eraser on both and just tested the 128 first. after a very long test it found the same failing address as before.

so i am assuming that this card is bad and not repairable?? and i am in need of some new memory which i now know how to install

i am going to see if the computer works with just the 256 - if not then i guess i'll test that one out too.

 

Sounds like a result.
If it is the same address aswell, it sure sounds stuffed..............

 

ok now crap - yeah that was the same address as before
test 3
failing address 00007be1288 - 123mb

but i just tried to start the comp with just the 256 and i still got that damn bsod and a reboot. i gotta go to work again but i have memtest86 testing the 256 right now. any ideas?

 

ok i have the comp running on just the 256 right now and it seems to be ok - i think it is still hanging a little bit after the black xp loading screen but we'll see if that keeps up. i guess its time for some new ram. thanks guys for your help its much appreciated.