Keep Getting Blue Screen

[Gary Childress]

I have a Dell computer and reinstalled Windows XP on it a month or two back. Lately It's been getting a blue screen error message telling me "A problem has been detected and Windows has been shut down to prevent damage to your computer".

Thinking the problem might be a device driver I tried to reinstall Windows. So I wiped the hard drive clean, and threw in the Windows XP recovery disk that came with my computer.

I popped in a Windows 98 floppy and fdisked the hard drive and booted up to install windows. I got almost through the preliminary hard drive format to get ready to actually install Windows and got the blue screen once more. Same error message. I assume, then, that it isn't a driver problem?

The error message says "Page fault in non-paged area".

The rest of the error message says:

***STOP: 0x0000008E (0xC0000005, 0xX8055259A, 0xF75A6854, 0x00000000)

Any ideas on what the problem could be?

Many thanks.

[Alaron]

Looks like a RAM issue: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/315335

[Gary Childress]

Thanks! I think it has 4 sticks of RAM in it. I'll try removing some and see what happens.

[ThePoor]

I think you should replace the HDD. If you have spare one laying somewhere popped it in to see if it work.
But 4 sure it the hard drive.

[glc]

Before replacing a hard drive, you should run diagnostics on the drive. Your suggestion is like telling someone to replace their car engine if it won't start.

It's very easy to run diagnostics on ram and hard drives, and this should always be done whenever possible before shotgunning parts.

[Gary Childress]

How do I run diagnostics on the RAM and HD?

Thanks.

@ ThePoor: what makes you think it is the HD? According to the error message Alaron looked up it should be the RAM.

[glc]

Ram: Download memtest86+ and create the bootable media.

www.memtest.org

Hard drive: download the diagnostic software from the hard drive manufacturer and do the same.

Alternatively, if you have the "Dell Resource CD" that came with the computer, it should be bootable and will have diagnostics on it for the whole computer.

[Gary Childress]

Well. I didn't get a chance to run any tests. I ended up just pulling out the oldest RAM sticks and testing it after that. The system seems to work fine now. (I still have 2 GB of RAM i it.) Many thanks Alaron!! It appears that you were right!

[glc]

Let me guess - the computer came with 2 modules and you added 2 - and you did not buy the new modules using guaranteed compatible ram using a configurator...........

[Gary Childress]

It's a Dell machine. It came with 2 modules of 512 mb total. I added 2 modules of 2 GB a few years ago to it. I ordered the modules from Dell so they were compatible. Everything worked fine until just a week or so ago. Then I was getting this error message. I assume it was just some sticks gone bad?

[glc]

If that's what you did, that is probably the case. Memtest86+ or Dell diags can prove that for you, you can test one module at a time.