Are these crashes RAM related?

[Sandman223]

Whenever I run Farcry or HL2 demos, after about 2 minutes or so, I hear a beep and the system reboots and upon the next boot says I have recovered from a serious error. The technical details section included these files in its error report:

C:\DOCUME~1\Sandman\LOCALS~1\Temp\WER821f.dir00\Mini040105-01.dmp
C:\DOCUME~1\Sandman\LOCALS~1\Temp\WER821f.dir00\sysdata.xml

Can anyone tell me if this is driver or RAM related? I can play videos, dvds and use bittorrent and browse all day long, as well as play Counter Strike or any older games but I keep crashing these two demos.
BTW, I have directx9b and the latest catalyst drivers installed.

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

You can test your ram with memtest

linky

 

[imported_itr]

be sure to run the test for several hours.

 

[ColKurtz]

Running memtest will help, but even memtest isn't foolproof (no memory diags are). If you're able to pul half your ram, that's a better way of narrowing things down - especially since your problem is reproducable. If it still fails, put the other half in. If that also fails, your ram is fine.

 

[NightTrain]

Could be heat.

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

Originally posted by: ColKurtz
Running memtest will help, but even memtest isn't foolproof (no memory diags are). If you're able to pul half your ram, that's a better way of narrowing things down - especially since your problem is reproducable. If it still fails, put the other half in. If that also fails, your ram is fine.

Or they both suck

 

[Sandman223]

Just ran memtest for about 30 mins until it got to 190% with zero errors. When I clicked "end test" the system rebooted and gave me the same error. Any ideas?

 

[SlitheryDee]

Could be memory related...Run memtest a bit longer, several hours as itr suggested.

 

[akugami]

Put memtest86 on floppy or CD. Reboot and boot off of the floppy or CD. Run memtest86. Go to sleep. Wake up and see if any errors show up.

 

[stevty2889]

I also advise setting memtest to run the extended tests as well, not just the default tests, and 30 minutes is definatly not enough, at least over night.

 

[Sandman223]

Just ran memtest for about 4 hours and made 10 passes with zero errors. I turned off the reboot option when I get an error message so now Half-Life 2 just crashes desktop and farcry demo crashes and reports an access exception. Could this be related to directx problems somehow?

 

[Duvie]

I think it may be a power issue...list PSU specsand take a look at the +3.3v rail more specifically....

 

[sniperruff]

maybe put every clock to default.

 

[Sandman223]

Duvie: Do you mean the specs from my bios?
Sniper: I'm not overclocking if that's what you mean. If not, how would I do this?

 

[Googer]

Originally posted by: YOyoYOhowsDAjello
You can test your ram with memtest

linky

Even better is to download the ultimate boot cd, MEMTEST is included on the disc along with many other diagnostic tools.

http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/

 

[andy nowotny]

Prime95 also can test it

 

[Googer]

Originally posted by: Sandman223
Whenever I run Farcry or HL2 demos, after about 2 minutes or so, I hear a beep and the system reboots and upon the next boot says I have recovered from a serious error. The technical details section included these files in its error report:

C:\DOCUME~1\Sandman\LOCALS~1\Temp\WER821f.dir00\Mini040105-01.dmp
C:\DOCUME~1\Sandman\LOCALS~1\Temp\WER821f.dir00\sysdata.xml

Can anyone tell me if this is driver or RAM related? I can play videos, dvds and use bittorrent and browse all day long, as well as play Counter Strike or any older games but I keep crashing these two demos.
BTW, I have directx9b and the latest catalyst drivers installed.

I have seen these before, it's most likely a driver or software problem. Check you dump log and Dr. Watson for more details on what may be happening during those memory dumps.

Although I douby it, but if you still think it is a hardware problem; then remove the suspect memory and use some thing that is a "known good". IF it still does it then your ram is then not the problem.

 

[Googer]

Originally posted by: NightTrain
Could be heat.

Great, another heat-freak.

 

[Googer]

Originally posted by: Sandman223
Just ran memtest for about 30 mins until it got to 190% with zero errors. When I clicked "end test" the system rebooted and gave me the same error. Any ideas?

It's your operating system or something related to it.

 

[imported_Tick]

Sounds driver related to me. Not heat, otherwise memtest would reboot it. Check the hardware manager for any conflicts, and check dxdiag for any errors while your at it.

 

[stevty2889]

Originally posted by: Googer

Originally posted by: Sandman223
Just ran memtest for about 30 mins until it got to 190% with zero errors. When I clicked "end test" the system rebooted and gave me the same error. Any ideas?

It's your operating system or something related to it.

Umm, memtest runs outside of the OS..so if it was driver or OS related, it wouldn't have happened in memtest, it's gotta be a hardware problem..
EDIT: never mind, think i read that wrong, I need sleep. Looked like he meant the computer errored when he hit end test in memtest, so still could easily be driver related..

 

[Sandman223]

That error ocurred when I ran memtest in windows. I just ran it by booting from CD and it ran perfectly with no errors for like five hours. Does this mean it is certainly a driver problem?

 

[imported_Tick]

It really really sounds like it.

 

[imported_Tick]

Start it in safe mode, and see what happens.