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From: sukenick@sci.ccny.cuny.edu (SYG)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware
Subject: Re: Memory problems on 386....Please help
Message-ID: <1991Jan1.181709.5868@sci.ccny.cuny.edu>
Date: 1 Jan 91 18:17:09 GMT
References: <15123@sdcc6.ucsd.edu>
Organization: City College of New York - Science Computing Facility
Lines: 41

>of 256k SIMMs, and after upgrading to 4 megs I think that I am having 
>memory problems.  System hangs or gives Unrecoverable App. 
>Error in windows 3.0 when I tried to do anything and occationally hangs
>    Extended Memory.............................................FAILED ***
>The error is always at address xx1B48h, but the memory test gets
>through with no errors if i load HIMEM.SYS that comes with windows 3.
>So I don't know what to make of this.

There are many methods of checking memory, and some are better
at finding errors than others; however the "better" methods
tend to take more time.  Look up the October/90 issue of
(IEEE) Computer magazine for more info.

What to do in the meantime:
Try each of these, and at the end of each, see which works.

1) Try the system at a slower speed, if that is switchable.

2) Are the new SIMMs the same (or faster) speed than the old ones?

3) Try taking then out (whilest donning ye olde grounde strape)
   using compressed air (the canned stuff is fine) and cleaning
   the dust on the board.  Put them back in the same order that
   you took them out. If the problem is still at the same address(es):

4) Take the SIMMs out and shuffle them (no, don't throw them up in the air
   do it in some logical manner, keep track of which goes where) .
   If the address shifts,
   it's a bad SIMM, you'll have to figure out which SIMM corresponds
   to which bits/addresses and replace it.

>got no errors. I don't think the problem is with 1 meg SIMMs either, 
>since I tested them on another machine. Can something be wrong with

other machine had the same speed?

>new PAL chips that I put in?

Surely,  if  4) shows no change in the address of the error.
The other possibility is a motherboard problem, such as a 
power problem or  intermittant short.