Blue Screen Of Death

[plod]

My laptop came up with a blue screen last night saying problem with memory management and then crashed

Can't get it to boot up at all now
Powers up but does nothing as was trying to get it to boot up in safe mode but not even doing that

[sirwiggum]

Sounds like bad memory?

Though with a laptop it could be bad solder on the board, overheating or the CPU fan stopped spinning.

[plod]

A quick google last night suggested bad memory

Will have to have a butchers and price up new memory
For reference it's a Dell Inspiron 1545

[highlander]

First, stop - don't order anything.

Switch it off, and flip it upside down. Open up the access panel where the memory modules are. See if any of the memory modules have worked their way loose at all; it's a laptop, after all, and therefore subject to movement a lot more than a desktop is. Try taking the memory modules out and clearing any dust/crap from that area. Also check to ensure there's no dust/crap clogging up the cooling vents and fans. Re-seat the memory, close up the panel, and try booting the machine.

If it still doesn't work, make a note of what messages are shown in the BSOD screen - while not obvious to most people (including the technically-literate) you might find something useful in that screen to help track down what the problem is - whether it's a driver issue, or a memory issue, or something graphics-related, you could find a clue from what the screen tells you.

BSOD screens may say useful things like "The problem seems to be caused by the following file:" and then name a system file. Other screens may give you errors like "PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA" or "IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL". All of them will give you a line that starts with "*** STOP:" and then lists a hexadecimal code like "0x0000000A". Take a note of these and post them here, and I'll try and help you make sense of what the machine is trying to tell you is wrong.

This is the sort of crap that makes the computer-illiterate think that computers are "far too technical". Microsoft should have spent a lot more time trying to present this kind of error code to you in a meaningful way. A lot of the time, Windows installs will actually automatically reboot the system when the BSOD message appears so quickly that you don't get a chance to see any of it, which is frustrating because that's a setting you can only disable once Windows has booted successfully.

[Gary406]

my wifes laptop use do this dave. quick format and re-install 7 sorted it

[plod]

Took access panel off and removed memory, gave the area a bit of a clean and put back together to no effect

To clarify I had the BSOD come up last night and before I could read anything other than memory management and restart it went blank
I tried turning it on and off a number of times last night and only once did the boot up screen come up
All other times the power light comes on but it does nothing

I'm trying now and sometimes it whirrs up like its going to boot it but then goes quiet and I have nothing on the screen

Been hoping I can get it to boot it partially enough to get into boot menu but no joy

[trem1]

not good at these things but i was told to keep pressing f8 while its trying to boot up and that gets you to start in safe mode or something. probably not much help and you've already tried but you never know

[plod]

In anticipation of it being a memory problem I popped out the first set DIMM 1 and it has booted up

Many thanks for all help guys especially highlander for trying to save me money

[trem1]

So are you sorted with it now ???

[plod]

I'm just doing a system restore and then running anti virus as a precautionary measure and just going to price up some memory

[OdinEidolon]

definitely sounds like corrupted memory. To be sure, if you have more than a single memory module:
- get one out
- boot. If it boots and behaves fine, the memory module you removed is corrupted and must be changed
- if it doesn't work, put the module back in and extract the other
- retry
- if it still does not work, both may be upset. Strange, but may happen.

In this case, or if you have a single memory module:
- grab another computer with a CD burner
- burn whatever Linux distribution which has Memtest built into GRUB, the bootloader (Ubuntu should be fine, you can find tons which will be faster to download)
- boot with the CD in, selecting in the bios to boot from CD whenever possible, then select memtest
- memtest will tell you how and where your memory is corrupted, or the computer will crash

if the latter does not work, the corruption may be too serious even to boot a LiveCD. Or it may be the CPU, HDD or mobo.

After that, get a serious OS up there! (and no it does not start with W)

[highlander]

No sweat! Hate hardware failures, and diagnosing them can be a royal pain in the behind, especially when Windows comes up with a screen full of numbers and techno-babble rather than a useful message like "I think your memory module is f*cked".

The PC I use as a server is currently threatening to suffer a hard disk failure (every so often the disk stops and you hear it trying to spin up repeatedly) and this is the second disk that has gone out in the same way in the last 6 months, so am fed up with broken hardware. At least this time I've got it properly backed up (free software called CrashPlan automatically backs up data to another PC on your network).

[sirwiggum]

If you get it back in again and booting, most Linux CDs have an option on the boot menu for "Memtest".

This will run a diagnostic of your memory and tell you if it is good or bad.

[plod]

So i'm on the laptop now, and it had 3gb memory, and the 1gb is the one that's gone tits up, so i'm running with 2gb

I was thinking of replacing the faulty 1gb with a 2gb, but i've been reading that my laptop has a maximum of 4gb, which isn't the problem, but that it might only recognise either 3gb or 3.5gb
Thus making buying a 2gb one less attractive

However if I had a 64bit OS I can have a maximum of 8gb

Thus do I :

a/ buy a 1gb memory as a direct replacment in case my laptop only recognises 3gb

b/ buy a 2gb memory as an upgrade and hope the laptop recognises it

c/ upgrade the OS to 64bit and buy either one or two 4gb memory

[sirwiggum]

If the laptop can only physically handle 4GB, then you couldn't put say 8GB in.
I wouldn't say there would be a huge difference between 3 and 4GB, I'd get a new 1GB chip and keep your OS and drivers as they are.