Physical memory dump

CluelessJ,

Thank you for using the Dell Community Forum.

Try doing a clean install of Windows. The operating system may be corrupt especially if you have not reinstalled windows in a while.

mine does the same sort of thing, physical memory dump, however it does it randomly like every few weeks or so, and fresh install of 2k does not help. Is it a hardware problem. Mine does it normally on shut down but sometimes on startup and when i am in windows. RAM fault?

I'm really not sure. I'm not exactly a whizz with computers.

All i know is that it isn't really giving me a chance to do anything about it. I turn the laptop on, it begins to load, and before i have to do anything else the message pops up, the laptop restarts itself, and then shortly after, again without me doing anything, it simply freezes. I'm not doing anything or pressing anything other than the on switch, and i really don't have the first clue (hence the name) of where to start in trying to solve this problem. People are saying re install windows, re-install the hardrive, i don't know how to go about doing that, so if anyone's got any suggestions that would help loads!

 

cheers j

You have a laptop? Two very common issues that happen to laptops come from shock damage. This is usually the case for a laptop that you have been using a lot just fine, and all of a sudden it stops working. Try flipping your computer over and reseating the RAM (there should be a screw or two holding on a panel labeled M. Before you touch the memory, touch the screw on an electric socket to ground yourself. Take the screws off and pop off the cover. Take the memory out, then put it back in securely. If that does not help, I might recommend that your hard drive may have been damaged. If you carry it aroud, a good bump to the case could cause some windows components to fail from damage to the hard drive. We use a free app here called Bart's PE that lets us boot off of a CD and fix the problems with chkdsk /r, but it is a pain to set up a copy of it if you don't know what you are doing. First, try booting in safe mode - hit F8 after the blue bar goes across the screen at the very beginning. You may have to do it a few times - if your computer doesn't show a list of operating systems, it will work on the first black and white windows loading screen, before the semi-colorful loading screen with the bar that cycles across the bottom. It will bring up a list of startup options, and the first 3 should be safe mode, safe mode with networking support, and safe mode with command prompt. Do the safe mode with command prompt, and if it manages to load type in "chkdsk C: /r" without the quotes. If it doesn't manage to load ask an IT guy at your university to run a checkdisk on your drive, because he might be able to hook it up as a secondary drive or boot off a CD like I mentioned.