3 replies to this topic

[symiggy]

In February of this year I acquired a new computer ( AMD Athlon 64 Dual core 3800+; 1.0 GB RAM, GeCube Radeon X800X, Windows XP Home SP2 ) along with some new software including MS Office.

Approximately two months ago I had a second GB of memory installed. This was done professionally by the original vendors and the identical (and appropriate) memory was used giving me a total of 2GB in all but I suspect this may be at the root of my problem.

Accordingly I began to use Outlook as my email client since I do appreciate all its features.

Everything was working fine up to about month ago when the the problem started out of the blue so to speak.
I had not installed any hard or software prior to this problem other than the new memory that I mentioned above.

Specifically, when I shut down Outlook I get the dreaded Blue screen of Death.

This does not happen every time but probably every second or third time I close the program.
There is sometimes a high pitched clicking type of sound but not always.
I get various messages on the screen the two most frequent being:

IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL

or

An attempt was made to Execute Non-Executable Memory.

Then there is are several non specific type sentences making sure I have installed programs properly and advising me to restart in safe mode to remove the recently installed software or hardware etc.
None of this essentially applies to me.

Finally at the bottom of the screen is a series of numbers that vary slightly with each BSOD. The most recent set of
numbers was:

STOP: 0x0000000A (0x00000014,0x00000002,0x00000000,0x804F1322)

In discussing this problem amongst friends of mine, the general consensus is that I may have developed a bad memory chip.

Accordingly I was advised to download and run Memtest 86.
This I did and in fact after a overnight run (I did not realise at first that the test continues to cycle so I was waiting for it to end) there were ZERO errors found.

It was also suggested that I look at the 'Events Log' again there was nothing of any help along that line.

To cut a long story short I was at my wits end since I'm sure that crashing the computer every second time I close Outlook is not doing it much good, so in desperation I switched to Thunderbird as my email client.

All went well with Thunderbird for a few days when lo and behold, on closing Thunderbird today I got the (now familiar) Blue screen of Death.

I should stress that this BSOD only occurs when I exit whichever email program that I happen to be using and never with any other program what-so-ever.
And also at no other time other than when exiting the program

I would be most grateful for any suggestions as to what the problem might be and more specifically for any help in that regard.

[paws]

Hi Sorry to hear of the problem with your computer. Please read carefully the whole of this post before taking any action. The usual first step when faced with this situation is to remove the recently installed additional memory and see if that fixes the problem, if it does then it clearly identifies either faulty memory or it's installed in the wrong slot. The next step is to replicate the situation that you had prior to the second lot of memory being installed eg the original memory in the original slot. (Trial and error is one way of doing it!). However, you do indicate that the machine is less than 12 months old so is still under guarantee/warranty and the extra memory was installed by the vendor and is only two months old. Some warranties/guarantees specifically warn against opening the computer and/or carrying out any form of service, under pain of them subsequently refusing to offer any form of support. That being the case the best advice must be to consult the vendor before you do anything that would be likely to invalidate your guarantee/warranty. As you have not installed any extra hardware or software the vendor should really be your first port of call. Hopefully they will be able to fix the problem for you, but if not you will need to consider your next steps very carefully as guarantees/warranties are often legally enforceable against the vendor/distributor/manufacturer under some jurisdictions. Regards paws

[symiggy]

Hi Sorry to hear of the problem with your computer.

Please read carefully the whole of this post before taking any action.

The usual first step when faced with this situation is to remove the recently installed additional memory and see if that fixes the problem, if it does then it clearly identifies either faulty memory or it's installed in the wrong slot.

The next step is to replicate the situation that you had prior to the second lot of memory being installed eg the original memory in the original slot. (Trial and error is one way of doing it!).

However, you do indicate that the machine is less than 12 months old so is still under guarantee/warranty and the extra memory was installed by the vendor and is only two months old. Some warranties/guarantees specifically warn against opening the computer and/or carrying out any form of service, under pain of them subsequently refusing to offer any form of support.

That being the case the best advice must be to consult the vendor before you do anything that would be likely to invalidate your guarantee/warranty. As you have not installed any extra hardware or software the vendor should really be your first port of call.

Hopefully they will be able to fix the problem for you, but if not you will need to consider your next steps very carefully as guarantees/warranties are often legally enforceable against the vendor/distributor/manufacturer under some jurisdictions.

Regards
paws

Paws:
Thanks for your advice. Your point is well taken. I will take the computer back to the vendor.

[Baltimore Bullet]

The only time I ever saw Outllook crash on exit was when I had WinFax Pro installed. If you do have WinFax Pro installed, go to the "Control Panel" then double click on "Mail" then open "Data Files" and delete the entry for WinFax logs. Don't delete the default entry called "Personal Folders". There may be other log entries there depending the software you have installed that integrates with Outlook. If you see anything other "Logs" under "Data Files", you can try to delete them and see if that fixes your problem. I would remove the new memory stick first to see if that cures the problem then try the log file fix. Good Luck!