Windows 98 - Serious Memory Problems???

[neewah]

Hi,
Can you guys help me? My computer - A windows 98 SE with about 128mb RAM was running fine until 14:00 GMT when it locked up in the screen saver and after that I tried turning the power off and restarting the computer and it seemed to be fine until it started loading explorer.exe and other various system files. Sometimes it came up with blue screen errors and other times illegal operations. Here are some of the odd blue screen errors my computer came up with:
--

Error in 0000:00000204
Error in 016F:BFF9DFFF
Error in 0028:C001545A
Error in 0028:00000009
Error in 0028:C0014E88 in VxD --- called from 0028:C0015B05 VxD ---

--
Also, I was getting illegal operations with explorer.exe and kernal32.dll. I checked up on different websites and it sounds as if it is a memory problem because nothing at all seems to load when windows explorer starts up.
After all the errors, the computer then either restarts itself with a protection fault or freezes, but I can still move the mouse.
I know this IS NOT a virus because it is not connected to the internet or any network and I have not copied any programs from the internet onto it and also I have got the latest AVG 7 scanner.
But there is one thing I noticed - when it was working fine it said that there was only about 200Kb Memory Available!! Something's got to be wrong.... but I don't know if it's the memory or not
Any ideas, because I REALLY need this computer, it's got loads of stuff I need to keep and use on it.
Please help!
Thanks a lot, Jamie

 

[DJ-CHRIS]

You dont have much memory but I dont believe that is the problem.

I am guessing that one of your sticks of memory is bad, but it would be odd for you just to relise now.

Download and run thru memtest86 at memtest.org and report back.

 

[neewah]

I've loaded MemTest off DOS and there were over 1million errors and 0 successes. Does this mean my memory is dead??

 

[m3trj]

With those results then yeah the memory must be bad. Every test should pass and you should get no errors at all.

It's a bit odd how that can just "happen" randomly. Have you recently made changes to the computer, like installed new memory?

 

[neewah]

No, I haven't but I have noticed that when the computer was working it was getting slower and slower every hour for no reason (especially with opening MCI devices i.e. MIDIs and WAVs in games). I dunno if its related or not though.

 

[m3trj]

Well it's very strange how that's just happened for no reason. Before you get new RAM I'd try to find the cause. Try the RAM in another motherboard if you have one, it might be the mobo not the RAM.

 

[neewah]

Thanks for the help, it seems to be working now

 

[neewah]

I've got a new computer now anyway, i found out later using AVG virus scan that the computer was infested with the Win32 Magistr Virus, which apperently killed flash memory as well as other things.

 

[BASSMASTER]

I've got a new computer now anyway, i found out later using AVG virus scan that the computer was infested with the Win32 Magistr Virus, which apperently killed flash memory as well as other things.

How did your cpu get a virus when it never saw an intertet connection, new program, or network connection?

 

[neewah]

It was on the internet years & years ago, apparently that's when it got the virus