DRAM! My PC done gone buggered itself!

[Rooster]

Ok, those who read my comic and/or have seen me in the IRC of late will know that my computer is slowly falling to peices like Joan Collins's face.

Firstly, it'll crash for no reason and the only way I've found to stop it is to just run one program at a time. Oh, screensavers are a no-no too as it'll just crash or blue-screen on my. At first, it said it was a problem with windows, but of late it's started doing something worse...something I feared.

It's beeping when it crashes...just long beeps repeated infinatly...which as techies will tell you is the BIOS beep code for what I call "a memory fuckup".

Now, I know what's wrong with it, the memory is feckered, but is there any way I can save it without forking out a wad of moolah for a new 1gb DRAM stick?

[Zaaphod]

Now, I know what's wrong with it, the memory is feckered, but is there any way I can save it without forking out a wad of moolah for a new 1gb DRAM stick?

I could be wrong, but I don't think there's any way other than new memory to fix it.

You wouldn't happen to have an old computer you could steal RAM from? That would be a stopgap until getting the new stick.

[Rooster]

Naw I don't. Then again, thinking about it more, this DRAM is pretty old now...about two years old.

I might just have to bite the bullet and spent my food moneys on a sub-1gb one instead. Poop.

Unless anyone else has any other ideas. Even ways to delay the enevitable or just to make it crash a bit less often would be appreciated.

[baloki]

Two things, first off get hold of a Linux Live CD, run it and get it to do a memory test, see what errors it brings back. Second try removing and reseating the RAM, if the error checking brings back no errors and it's seated properly it might be the slot your RAM is installed in, so try using it in a different RAM slot?

[Chris]

Instead of getting a 1GB, Get a 512MB. Add another 512MB if you need an additional RAM.

[jent]

You can try removing the ram...cleaning the contacts with a pink eraser....then reseating the ram, just to ensure you can't save anything from it. But beyond that new ram is your only option.

[Rooster]

Cheers for the help guys.

I've reseated the RAM and so far so good. It hasn't crashed yet, so I guess that might have done the trick...but I'm not going to push it in an attempt to see if I can make it crash.

[Doc Sigma]

Cheers for the help guys.

I've reseated the RAM and so far so good. It hasn't crashed yet, so I guess that might have done the trick...but I'm not going to push it in an attempt to see if I can make it crash.

When you said "I'm not going to push it", I misread it as "I'm now going to push it"... so here you go!

Code: Select all

fork() while(1);

World's smallest computer-crasher.

EDIT: It's in Perl but for some reason it wouldn't let me post the shabang, kept saying "No post mode specified", wtf?