[tails13]

G'day guys...

I recently (almost two months ago) purchased a new laptop on feebay (if you're going to post anti purchasing off ebay replies...don't....i already know). It's a LG e500 SAP20A

Specs:
vista home premium 32bit.
Intel Core 2 Duo 2.2ghz T7500
two DDR2 667mhz 2gb RAM Sodimm pc5300 RAM modules (obviously being only 32bit, only 3gb is recognized)
NVIDIA geforce 8400M 128Mb

The extra RAM didn't come standard on it, it was added by the store i purchased it from. It's brand new and still covered by manufacteror warranty.

Now the problem; random blue screens during normal running of the PC. It worked fine for the first few weeks, no problems what so ever. how ever about three weeks ago i got a blue screen of death whilst running word (from office 2003). i restarted the computer and it was fine for another week or so. then i got another, and then another and another. Now it will only sometimes run fine in normal mode (i'm currently in safe mode which has had no blue screens to date). the BSOD's don't come at any particular time, or during any particular program.

apart from the BSOD's i get a lot of program crashes. mainly firefox (which i uninstalled) as well as windows explorer, superfetch (what ever that is) and a list of other programs.

The error messages i've been getting are as follows:
PAGE FAULT IN NONPAGED AREA 0x00000050
MEMORY MANAGEMENT 0x0000001A
PFN LIST CORRUPT 0x0000004E

It is very random, same error messages but with different numbers. they were the most recent error numbers. One of the error messages mentioned a system32k.sys file.

To fix the problem i've ran several tests and tried to install SP1, which hasn't worked either. I recieve an internal error message. the error code was 800700D i think, which means a corrupted file. When trying to run system file checker, it never finishes giving me the message 'windows resource protection is unable to perform this function' or something along the lines.

I've ran windows memory diagnostics thinking it may be a problem with the RAM installed, it resulted in telling me that i had hardware problems. If it were an issue with hardware, like RAM, is it still possible for it to run fine in safe mode? as well as this, how was it able to run fine for almost a month?

I am yet to run memtest86, waiting for a chance to use my other computer to burn the boot disk.

Sorry about all the rambling, i'm hoping some one here can point me in the right direction...

I'm pretty good at following most instructions to do with computers as long as they are clear, and designed for the lay man (me).

any help would be greatly appreciated...
cheers.

[Rich-M]

Definitely run memtest 86 and remember you need to do at least 4 complete tests and each one has 8 passes so 3-4 hours is necessary. Any errors at all mean a ram problem and most blue screens are caused by ram issues.

[Rollin' Rog]

The memtest diagnostic will give you an idea of what module the error is in -- or you can remove one at a time for testing. Sometimes reseating is all that is needed.

Actually all your ram is recognized -- but in 32 bit Windows a certain portion of it will be used for BIOS and graphics.

If you install SP1 -- you will see all of it "recognized" but the actual usage will still be limited to less than 4gb

One heads up about memtest -- it is "safe" except for one of the "advanced" BIOS memory tests -- just stay out of there.

You are using less memory in Safe Mode -- so any portion of a module that is not written to will not fault.

[tails13]

Thanks for the quick replies guys. i thought it may have been a compatibility issue with my hardware and vista. so i'm going to do a repair install of vista today whilst i'm at my girlfriends (her brother is computer cat). by doing this, i'm hoping it will repair any corrupted system files, so i will be able to install SP1 which has failed on past attempts as well as system file checker, hinting at corrupted files.

With removing the ram modules one by one, is it as easy as that? just take them physically out one by one and run the computer and see if i still get the blue screen? or do i have to set anything up on the computer so it will run on only 2gb when it is used to 4gb?

[Rollin' Rog]

It's easy, though a bit tedious to remove the modules for testing on a laptop.

It is recommended you remove the battery as well as unplug it before doing so -- and ground your hands on something metal to remove any static charge before handling them.

If you have a manual for the laptop it should instruct you on memory upgrade procedures -- which covers the same basic drill. If one didn't come with it you can probably download one in pdf form for the model from the manufacturer's site.

You can run memtest with one module at a time, nothing else needs to be configured.

[tails13]

swapping the RAM right now as we speak. took one module out, memory diag returned no problems, testing the second module now, it must be this one that's causing the issues. fingers crossed.

thanks for the help.