Frustrating trouble with 98 or Ram(?) Please tell me what you think

[Bun]

Ok, the scoop. 2 friends and I recently put together some machines.

-- TB 1.3, Epox 8k7a, MSI GF2 Pro64, 1x Crucial 256 DDR, and 45gig IBM deskstar.

All three pc's are the same except for the HD. Mine, unfortunatly, has been unstable from the start. I had winME on it for a while, and it would lock after about 10-15min. Temps were cool on the cpu and case, and the voltages were ok. I reformatted out of frustration and put 98 First edition on. It was ok for a couple hours, then started randomly rebooting. (ram?)

It then got to the point where everytime I tried to get into windows it told me "error inializing VCACHE, windows protection error, reboot" Call me green, but I'm not familiar with what might cause this. Haven't been to windows since. DOS will run fine; scandisk checked out fine and dandy. I've tried reinstalling 98, and it will just get protection errors in the midst of installing. I did swap ram from a friend while windows was installed, and it ran fine. Is this proof enough for the ram? I've read alot of nice things about crucials memory. I didn't want to loose the faith! If you've read this far, thank you friend... please tell me what you think.

-bun

/edit
I ran memtest86, ALL kinds of errors. That did it for me. I called the crucial people, (prepared for a huge argument, mind you) and told them the first error I got. The man interuppted me and said, "Well, let's just get this replaced." me: "Alright!" I didn't know it could be so easy.
Thank you for your help, my brothers and sisters.

 

[tigerwannabe]

yup, sounds like the memory to me. you may have just gotten some defective RAM; i haven't heard of anyone having a bad time with crucial memory. did you check for physical damage on your stick? did the flaky memory work in another pc?

 

[bevancoleman]

Use a tool like MemTest86 to check memmory.

Some of the recent Epox m'boards had some issues with GF2 card (the MX had even more), check their site for bios update

 

[bunsAtWork]

would the memtest fix any problems? I guess I should probably DL and find out for myself.

 

[bjc112]

i don't think it will fix anything... but it would let you knowe if it is bad.. and it could be return to crucial for a good ole refund!

Bryan

 

[bunsAtWork]

ah hah! Thank you! Would the results of this test convince a crucial rep. to replace my ram? so many questions.... you guys (and ladies) are great...

 

[bevancoleman]

It should, they can run it them selfs anyway.

I took a memory stick back to the maufacturer once because my dealer has gone bust. They didn't have a problem with replacing it.