B
Ben Williams
I just bought a brand new 120 GB Western Digital Hard Drive, NVIDIA
GeForce FX 5200 Video Card, and a ViewSonic G790 19" Monitor - at a computer
show. I got lucky and they let me out of there for a little over $200 (ok, I
traded in two old monitors for a total of $35 credit). I was stupid enough
to lend my PC to a very pre-occupied vendor down there to install my video
card and my hard drive. I asked him to move my data from a Maxtor 60 GB Hard
Drive over to my new Western Digital 120 GB Hard Drive and format the 60 GB.
I reasoned that since he sold the stuff that he should be able to service
and install it without a problem. He proved me wrong. He transferred all the
data off of my Maxtor 60 GB Hard Drive and put it on the Western Digital 120
GB Hard Drive and formatted the old 60 GB per my request.
My luck was about to take a turn for the worse, however, since he never
got around to installing the video card (how convenient). He claimed he
didn't have enough time to do it. He also claimed that he could not remove
the old 60 GB from the computer without first removing my heat sink and both
of my memory chips. Again, he didn't have the time and said he needed
special tools to remove it. Apparently, he didn't see that it was fixed in
place in the bay by mounting plates and screws. I was glad that the drive I
chose to let him work was used for storage only and contains no operating
system. At least he did it for free.
Once home, I decide to remove the 60 GB and install the 120 GB. This
should be pretty routine, but with my luck it turns into a nightmare. I
manage to get the drives physically swapped by removing the plastic drive
cover in the front, unscrewing the drive and the mounting plates and pulling
it out the front of the case. The drives was not jumpered correctly and
conflicted with one of my CD players. I tried to no avail to fix the
situation, before finally calling for professional help. A friend of mine,
who works on computers for a living, agreed to buy my old video card and the
now empty Maxtor 60 GB Hard Drive in exchange for getting the 120 GB
jumpered and installed correctly and installation of the video card. I had
already been confronted a few times with the blue screen of death, informing
me of:
***Hardware Malfunction - Call your Hardware Vendor for Support - NMI:
Parity Check / Memory Parity Error - System was halted***
This has been a bothersome issue for quite some time, but I had lived
with it, falsely assuming that my GeForce2 TI Video Card, now becoming
increasingly obsolete in the eyes of many, was at the center of the problem.
Once I had the new GeForce FX 5200 installed, however, what had once become
a minor annoyance quickly became a major hindrance. Instead of seeing this
error message every 3-4 days, I'm now seeing it after only running my
computer for a few minutes. Every time that I try to load up Unreal
Tournament using the Direct3D method, it locks up. This error message also
appears almost every time I attempt to view some of my beloved POV
rollercoaster videos or locks up when I play graphic intensive games like
MechWarrior 4: Vengeance.
I tested my system RAM several times using Memtest 86 version 3.0 and it
would return over 200 errors around the 320-335mb mark. It would also lock
up during these tests around the fourth set of tests. Crucial Technology,
who warranties my RAM for life, happily agreed to replace it using their
advance return shipment method (I order replacements, they charge me for
them and ship them, I then return the defective RAM in their packaging, and
they credit my credit card once I ship them defective DIMMs). I had
anticipated that replacing the system RAM would solve the problem, but to no
avail. The problem continues to rear its ugly head, undeterred even after I
swapped the new and old DIMMs out. Something is not right here. In fact,
something is very, very badly wrong, indeed. I have been reading up on this
lately and I find that I am not the first one out there that's had to deal
with this. I also know that there are a number of things out there that
could be causing this besides the components I have mentioned here. Can
someone please help me figure out what is wrong here, so that I can remedy
this problem?
GeForce FX 5200 Video Card, and a ViewSonic G790 19" Monitor - at a computer
show. I got lucky and they let me out of there for a little over $200 (ok, I
traded in two old monitors for a total of $35 credit). I was stupid enough
to lend my PC to a very pre-occupied vendor down there to install my video
card and my hard drive. I asked him to move my data from a Maxtor 60 GB Hard
Drive over to my new Western Digital 120 GB Hard Drive and format the 60 GB.
I reasoned that since he sold the stuff that he should be able to service
and install it without a problem. He proved me wrong. He transferred all the
data off of my Maxtor 60 GB Hard Drive and put it on the Western Digital 120
GB Hard Drive and formatted the old 60 GB per my request.
My luck was about to take a turn for the worse, however, since he never
got around to installing the video card (how convenient). He claimed he
didn't have enough time to do it. He also claimed that he could not remove
the old 60 GB from the computer without first removing my heat sink and both
of my memory chips. Again, he didn't have the time and said he needed
special tools to remove it. Apparently, he didn't see that it was fixed in
place in the bay by mounting plates and screws. I was glad that the drive I
chose to let him work was used for storage only and contains no operating
system. At least he did it for free.
Once home, I decide to remove the 60 GB and install the 120 GB. This
should be pretty routine, but with my luck it turns into a nightmare. I
manage to get the drives physically swapped by removing the plastic drive
cover in the front, unscrewing the drive and the mounting plates and pulling
it out the front of the case. The drives was not jumpered correctly and
conflicted with one of my CD players. I tried to no avail to fix the
situation, before finally calling for professional help. A friend of mine,
who works on computers for a living, agreed to buy my old video card and the
now empty Maxtor 60 GB Hard Drive in exchange for getting the 120 GB
jumpered and installed correctly and installation of the video card. I had
already been confronted a few times with the blue screen of death, informing
me of:
***Hardware Malfunction - Call your Hardware Vendor for Support - NMI:
Parity Check / Memory Parity Error - System was halted***
This has been a bothersome issue for quite some time, but I had lived
with it, falsely assuming that my GeForce2 TI Video Card, now becoming
increasingly obsolete in the eyes of many, was at the center of the problem.
Once I had the new GeForce FX 5200 installed, however, what had once become
a minor annoyance quickly became a major hindrance. Instead of seeing this
error message every 3-4 days, I'm now seeing it after only running my
computer for a few minutes. Every time that I try to load up Unreal
Tournament using the Direct3D method, it locks up. This error message also
appears almost every time I attempt to view some of my beloved POV
rollercoaster videos or locks up when I play graphic intensive games like
MechWarrior 4: Vengeance.
I tested my system RAM several times using Memtest 86 version 3.0 and it
would return over 200 errors around the 320-335mb mark. It would also lock
up during these tests around the fourth set of tests. Crucial Technology,
who warranties my RAM for life, happily agreed to replace it using their
advance return shipment method (I order replacements, they charge me for
them and ship them, I then return the defective RAM in their packaging, and
they credit my credit card once I ship them defective DIMMs). I had
anticipated that replacing the system RAM would solve the problem, but to no
avail. The problem continues to rear its ugly head, undeterred even after I
swapped the new and old DIMMs out. Something is not right here. In fact,
something is very, very badly wrong, indeed. I have been reading up on this
lately and I find that I am not the first one out there that's had to deal
with this. I also know that there are a number of things out there that
could be causing this besides the components I have mentioned here. Can
someone please help me figure out what is wrong here, so that I can remedy
this problem?