terrawarra

When I shut my PC down (Win XP professional), especially after using it for a prolonged period of time, like a few hours or so,.. the screen goes through the normal shutting down procedure and the final screen, "Windows is shutting down", a small window opens that says,
"The instruction at 0x00453e1c referenced memory at 0x00000000, the memory could not be read." it gives me 2 options to click on "cancel" or click on "debug",
it doesn't matter which button I click on because after a few seconds, the computer shuts down and everything seems OK. When I restart the PC, everything continues working well with no problems until I shut it down again and that same warning window appears once again with the same message. Note that this doesn't occur if I only have the PC turned on for a short time like 15 minutes or so before shutting it down.
Does anyone have any idea how to fix this problem or should I just ignore it ?

Wally

Deleted090308

Hi,
Have you installed the service packs for XP?

Nicholas

terrawarra

Yes Nicholas,..SP2 installed and all necessary updates. This problem only started a few weeks ago with no apparent cause,.. a friend suggested that it may be a faulty memory stick ( I have 2 x 256 sticks installed) I was toying with the idea of taking out each stick of memory, one at a time and running it with just one to see if the problem goes away. What do you think ?

Regards

Wally

Deleted090308

That's a good idea. Also - you could run Memtest

terrawarra

Thanks again Nicholas,.. just calling it a day and heading off to bed,.. I'll try the memtest tomorrow,.. fingers crossed !

Regards

Wally

Deleted090308

Good luck

JohnthePilot

Hi Wally,
Further to Nicholas' good advice, let Memtest run for several cycles, not just once. It's a shame I didn't catch you before you went to bed. I usually leave it running overnight.
Regards,
Pilot.

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Cenedl heb iaith, cenedl heb galon

terrawarra

Thanks Pilot,.. I've been a little busy today (Sunday) catching up on some lawnmowing and Gardening. I just downloaded memtest 86 and waded through the instructions on how to create and run a bootable floppy,.. it seems a little complicated for my limited knowledge but I'll give it a go. Before I try the memtest route I've decide to experiment first by removing one of my memory sticks and just run on one x 256 mb stick for a while and shut it down to observe the results. I'll then reverse the procedure and remove the other memory stick and check the results again. It's a simple process of elimination that my 63 year old brain can handle. Thanks again Pilot,.. I'll post my results tomorrow.

dai

just ignore it if the computer is running ok,if you had a problem with the ram you would expect a bsod error message
have you uninstalled anything recently

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terrawarra

Thanks Dai,
I've spent the afternoon swapping in & out my 2 sticks of ram (256mb each)
and it looks like one of the two is a bit dodgy. Through trial and error I've eliminated one of the sticks and my PC is now running sweetly on one stick (256mb),..albeit, a tad down on ram but it's amazing how windows compensates for it so quickly. I'm no rocket scientist but I think my problem has been resolved. I'll hop down to my local computer shop ASAP and buy a replacement stick of ram tomorrow. I did notice that although the ram in my PC were of the same value (256mb each), they didn't appear to be matching in appearance.
To answer your question re. "have I installed anything new lately",.. yes, I'm continually trying new software downloads in search of the holy grail and generally I reject most of them. The latest one is XXclone which I am going to try and duplicate my OS to a bootable copy on the second drive. When installing & uninstalling software, I use Ashampoo Uninstaller to remove the problem of rubbish left behind.
To you and the others who have responded to my log, I say thank you !
I'm sure as time goes by, I'll have a few more questions.

Regards

Wally

dai

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JohnthePilot

Or for a fuller description " How to copy your operating system from one hard drive to another".

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Cenedl heb iaith, cenedl heb galon

terrawarra

Thanks Dai,

I'm a bit late replying to your last post re. "Kindergarten for XXclone",.. i've been out all day and just got home (7.30 PM).
The "Kindergarten" instruction sure looks like something even I can grasp. I won't have any free time until late tomorrow or maybe Wednesday to try it out so I'll let you know how it goes after I do it. Also received a similar but even more comprehensive blow by blow description from Johnthepilot. My thanks to both of you for assisting an old "Dummy".

Regards

Wally

terrawarra

Thanks Pilot,

I hope you've read my last reply to Dai,.. it goes ditto for you as well !
I'm so glad that I stumbled upon this site (TSF) , I'm feeling so confident now knowing that I can lean on so many good folk like you to get me out of trouble. My PC is still behaving itself and running so smoothly even on 256 mb ram. I didn't get the replacement stick of ram yet. That will have to wait until our shopping day on Thursday when we venture to the big smoke (ie. our nearest big town)

Cheers

Wally

Deleted090308

Although I can't help with XXClone (never tried it) I'm glad you like TSF. With XXClone you've got help from two VERY competent members.

terrawarra

Thanks for your help Nicholas,.. you were one of the first to respond to my problems and I sure do appreciate your advice ! Hope I run into you again with any future problems that I may post.

Regards

wally

Deleted090308

Thanks, Wally. I would gladly help you again.

JohnthePilot