smlie4
Member
- Reaction score
- 3
- Location
- Perth, Australia
Every now and then customers Dell Dimension 3100 desktop, Windows XP Pro Sp3 will stop on startup at blue screen with message.
"NMI: Parity check / Memory parity error"
I went last week to diagnose blue screen complaints, there was no dump logs and after quick check I found their was a 2GB single stick in a MOBO that only supported 1GB per slot and up to 2GB.
I showed customer Dell support page stating specs and said this needs to be sorted as the RAM is too big and will cause issues, I also informed the customer (to cover my arse) that as their was no error logs (dump or event manager) I am fixing a problem that will lead to the blue screen. I will install the 2x1GB RAM and the customer should ring me if the problem occurs again.
A couple of days later customer calls me back saying it has Blue screened again but after they restarted a couple of time they were able to load through to desktop and computer works fine.
I arrived at house computer started fine whilst I was there, no dump or events logged. I took computer home, started it up and straight away was greeted by the above error which just stayed on the screen. I restarted the computer and it booted up fine. I restarted 5 more times and the error did not return.
I thought it might be heat related (hardware) so I put the computer outside at (13oC & cloudy) for an hour and tried again it booted up fine.
It makes it hard to diagnose when the error is really intermittent.
"NMI: Parity check / Memory parity error"
I went last week to diagnose blue screen complaints, there was no dump logs and after quick check I found their was a 2GB single stick in a MOBO that only supported 1GB per slot and up to 2GB.
I showed customer Dell support page stating specs and said this needs to be sorted as the RAM is too big and will cause issues, I also informed the customer (to cover my arse) that as their was no error logs (dump or event manager) I am fixing a problem that will lead to the blue screen. I will install the 2x1GB RAM and the customer should ring me if the problem occurs again.
A couple of days later customer calls me back saying it has Blue screened again but after they restarted a couple of time they were able to load through to desktop and computer works fine.
I arrived at house computer started fine whilst I was there, no dump or events logged. I took computer home, started it up and straight away was greeted by the above error which just stayed on the screen. I restarted the computer and it booted up fine. I restarted 5 more times and the error did not return.
I thought it might be heat related (hardware) so I put the computer outside at (13oC & cloudy) for an hour and tried again it booted up fine.
It makes it hard to diagnose when the error is really intermittent.
