Blue screen - XP - Gurus needed

[bigmouk]

Errors have been C000021a and C0000005.

Its been randomly blue screening for a couple of months now ONLY on login but not all the time. The event viewer refers to access violation a couple of time to IE, AVG and a couple of other programs so pretty ramdom me thinks. Also checked a couple of dumps files that refer to a memory problem.

Ran memtest the other day and got some memory errors - so i thought great that must be it, so i reseated the RAM and memtest passed after that time after time.

However, its errored again today, both event viewer referring to IE.

The error can not be reproduced - i have rebooted 20 times and logged in completely fine. The only pattern is that it only does it when the machine is cold, first thing in a morning for example...... which makes me think RAM ? Possibly when its heated up the fault is temporarly ok ?

I am going to replace the RAM and do a clean install of XP, just wondering if anyone has come across similar errors and what you found ??

Cheers!!

 

[Adams_16v]

could you try taking 1 or more ram sticks out and giving it a few days with just one stick in and rotate.

could narrow it down to a dodgy stick!

 

[bigmouk]

Yep, just one stick in. So im changing that first. The errors seem pretty generic and there isnt a 'definite answer' by all accounts.

I've seen faulty RAM do all sorts of weird things in the past so even though it looks ok through the test i'm hoping there is still a fault with it. The RAM is unbranded aswell which makes me think thats the culprit even more. I'm even wondering if the OS got corrupted in places when it was originally installed due to the RAM ?

I just cant see it being anything else, if it still errors after this im stuck!

 

[Colin-S]

I had something similar with my pc, boot it up and pc would work fine for weeks then out the blue i'd get the blue screen saying memory error. A few months ago i did a clean windows XP install and have had no problems.

Try a clean install of XP first and install a few programs at a time, sometimes you get memory errors from software conflicts.

I wouldnt change the RAM yet, you could try what Adams 16v wrote ^^

 

[bigmouk]

Done a clean install already, was ok for a few days, then errored again.

 

[Jimboobla]

Try the memory tester here http://oca.microsoft.com/en/windiag.asp#top

 

[Colin-S]

You could try change the RAM, but i cant be 100% sure that would solve the problem.

Post your reply once you change the RAM, would like to know if this actually fixes it.