[xzmattzx]

I have been having problems with my computer recently. The last few days, my computer has been turning itself "off" sometimes. Everything will shut down, and then the computer will have an extended beep: "eeeeeeeeeeee"; then, it will stop beeping for a quick second, and then do the extended beep again. It continues like this until I turn the computer off.

I have gotten the blue screen once. It's the one I've seen before, with "A prolem has occurred, etc, ... If this is the first time you have seen this message, shut the computer down. If you have seen this message before, remove any hardware, software, etc that was recently installed."

Is there any way to figure out what is the problem, and then how to fix it? I clean-installed everything back in the late Fall, and things have been working well until now. I had my younger brother over at my house and let him use my computer briefly, and I have a feeling he downloaded something and that is what's screwing it up. I don't know what could be the problem though.

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It could possibly be some kind of spyware but usually this is a Memory problem. Changing memory out with known good memory would be my first action. Once on someones computer i found that it was a power supply that ran a normal 12 volts at 13 amps but when any kind of load was put on the 12 volt line the amps dropped and the voltage went to 10.5 to 11 volts which caused numerous lockups and restarts. If both power supply and memory are good then start looking for software gremlins ( spyware and such).

SRX660

[SRX660]

It could possibly be some kind of spyware but usually this is a Memory problem. Changing memory out with known good memory would be my first action. Once on someones computer i found that it was a power supply that ran a normal 12 volts at 13 amps but when any kind of load was put on the 12 volt line the amps dropped and the voltage went to 10.5 to 11 volts which caused numerous lockups and restarts. If both power supply and memory are good then start looking for software gremlins ( spyware and such).

SRX660

[xzmattzx]

How do I go about checking the memory? Is it the Ctrl+Alt+Delete? Or is it somewhere else?

[SRX660]

Download this program, burn it to a floppy or a CD and run it to check your memory. It is a self standing program that starts before the computer starts up windows. Read the directions carefully to learn how to use the program.

http://www.memtest86.com/

SRX660

[xzmattzx]

Download this program, burn it to a floppy or a CD and run it to check your memory. It is a self standing program that starts before the computer starts up windows. Read the directions carefully to learn how to use the program.

http://www.memtest86.com/

SRX660

I'll give that a try, thanks.

[xzmattzx]

I downloaded it onto a floppy disk, and I am running rawrite.exe, and it is asking "Enter disk image source file name:". What do I enter?

[xzmattzx]

I tried clicking on install, and it asked me for the drive, and I typed "A" (it only accepted "A" or "B"), and it flew through some stuff so fast I don't know what happened. How do I figure out how to use this thing?

[123Runner]

The floppy disk will appear to be unformatted by Windows after the install is complete.

Put the floppy in the "A" drive and boot the computer. It will run the program.

You may have to go into the bios and change the boot order.

[xzmattzx]

It does appear to be unformatted. I'll shut the computer down and try it.

[SRX660]

123runner has partially answered you but here is the tutorial.

MEMTEST86 TUTORIAL

Windows users will want the "Pre-Compiled package for Floppy (DOS - Win)" or the Pre-Compiled Bootable ISO (.zip) depending upon your preference.

For the iso, unzip and save the iso to the hard drive, then burn to cd with your favorite burning application.

For the floppy, double-click on the "install.bat" file, put the floppy in as prompted, wait for it to write.

Neither resulting disk will be visible to Windows, so don't try to explore it.

Put the disk in and boot with it. For the first tests, you need to test with all of the ram that you plan to use installed. You also need to run at the bios settings that you plan to use. Let it run the seven default tests. Each set of seven tests is a "pass". It will run pass after pass forever until you reboot.

You can use the keyboard shortcuts on the bottom of the screen to select a single test to run if it is just one that is giving you errors.

Any errors, even one, is a bad sign and needs to be resolved before you can expect to install the OS or run reliably. At stock speeds, usually one pass is enough to find problems. If overclocking, may want to run for a longer period (hours? overnight?) before you settle on settings that you want to stay with.

Errors consistently at the same addresses can indicate ram that has physical flaws. Any manufacturer should replace memory with this problem free of charge. Errors that are inconsistent (show up every other pass) or are from different addresses might mean the system is overclocked a bit too far. You can remove sticks and repeat the tests to try to isolate problems to one stick or the other.

Windows based hardware diagnostic utilities like Norton Systemworks often falsely reports or misidentifies problematic hardware. We've received false memory complaints from customers that had Windows based hardware diagnostic utilities that reported memory errors. Yet they test fine when we test them with Memtest86 or our $25,000 hardware based memory tester. As an independent technician I would loathe the times when I had to work on computers that were loaded with Windows based diagnostic software. They always caused more problems than they fixed! Windows based diagnostic programs are a very very bad idea. You've got too many drivers, and other software programs running at the same time to allow for an accurate diagnoses of computer hardware problems.

Please be aware that not all errors reported by Memtest86 are due to bad memory. The test implicitly tests the CPU, L1 and L2 caches as well as the motherboard. So if the memory diagnostic software reports errors, keep in mind that this doesn't mean that there is definitely a problem with the memory module as other computer problems can cause a memory module to fail testing. It's possible that there is an incorrectly set BIOS setting, other hardware problems that are causing the memory test to fail, or the computer is accidentally overclocked higher than you thought. There is of course the possibility that a memory module is bad but you can only be sure of that if the BIOS settings are checked and other hardware problems are ruled out.

If Memtest86 reports errors, the best way to avoid incorrectly diagnosing the problem as being caused by a bad memory module is to swap in a different memory module. If you don't have a different memory module to troubleshoot with, or if swapping out the memory doesn't help, remove all unnecessary devices from the computer (all you need to run the test is a motherboard, CPU, floppy drive, power supply, video card, and only test one memory module at a time). If that troubleshooting step doesn't help then try swapping the power supply, video card, memory module, and CPU if possible. If removing or swapping devices did help, re-install them one at a time to find the culprit. If removing or swapping components doesn't help, then the memory module should be replaced.

SRX660

[xzmattzx]

I encountered errors in test #6. It was taking a long time, so I walked away for about 10 minutes at that point. I came back and the screen had gone nuts. All sorts of letters and symbols were in different colors, and nothing was going on. I had to shut down.

The errors in test #6 went on forever. When I walked away, there wee more than 2.5 millions errors (unless I'm reading that wrong). What does all of this mean?

[SRX660]

It means replace your memory. It is going bad. If it cannot even pass the 7 basic memory tests the memory is very bad.

SRX660

[xzmattzx]

How do I replace my memory? I'm guessing this is something different than clean-installing Windows and everything? Is this process going to delete any files or make me re-install things (whic would mean I need to back everything up again)?

[swordofdestiny]

To replace your memory you'll need to know what kind of memory your motherboard supports, if it's a manufactured machine like HP or Dell, it is most likely in the product manual and if not, Google the model of your PC (As in mine is a IBM Thinkpad T43) and look for3 the type of memory. Oh and you wont lose any data in the process. What you are replacing is called RAM, Random Access Memory, this memory looses all information when it loses a power source. It allows quick writing and reading to do quick tasks. Think of it as your short term memory and the hard drive being long term memory.

Edited by swordofdestiny, 09 February 2007 - 10:59 PM.

[xzmattzx]

I have a Compaq Presario 7550. I am not sure what tye of memory the motherboard uses, as I haven't really found a website that isn't junk or other people asking questions.