----- Original Message -----
From: "Bill Kingsbury" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Friday, April 07, 2006 9:37 PM
Subject: Re: Infrequent and Irregular Windows Lockups
Bad RAM?
So far, no lockups since I changed out all of my RAM. I had removed 2 of 4
sticks of Crucial 512 MB PC3200 a few days ago and replaced them with 1
stick of the same but 1024 MB. I do not remember any immediate problems. A
day or two later my USB Palm Pilot desktop software went nuts. I jumped
through hoops getting that straightened out, I thought. Then is when Windows
started locking up. I started keeping my Palm Pilot unplugged and it seemed
my Windows lockup problems were over, for awhile, anyway. Then they came
back.
My point or question here is that when you suspect the cause of a problem
and remove that device, the problem often disappears, for awhile. Why? It
would seem that if my RAM had been the problem all along, it would have not
went away for awhile when I unplugged my USB Palm Pilot. Now I wonder if the
same thing is happening, the problem disappearing for from 12 to 24 hours
right after I changed out my RAM and it may come back in a day or two.
I am use to hardware related problems being consistent. My experience tells
me that if a USB device or a card is causing Windows to lock up, the
presence of that device will cause the lockup within an hour, not
infrequently. Now I am wondering if that bad stick of RAM (if it is the RAM
and I sure hope it is!) caused my Palm Pilot desktop software to stall out.
The only hardware I was blaming for that was the Palm Pilot. Now for over 8
hours and two log offs and log ons with the Palm Pilot connected, all is
going well. I am holding my breath.
It makes me wonder why bad RAM caused problems in only two areas, my Palm
Pilot desktop software and Windows locking up. Perhaps the Palm Pilot used
the area of the RAM that was bad and nothing else used that area.
The lesson here is to try to limit hardware and peripheral changes to only
one per day so problems have time to show up. If we make any RAM changes and
some software gets mushy or non responsive, blame the RAM. Change it back to
the same RAM you were running before the software started messing up.
Thanks for all of the good advice. I feel every one of you who are
technicians have been in the same boat or will be. It has been a long time
since I have had a problem so major (Windows locking up) and so difficult to
identify the cause of. Needless to say, I panic when it is my computer that
is having the problems. I need to think positive. There is no hurry to send
this letter as my Windows is not going to lock up again anytime soon.
Chuck
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