Can Insufficient Memory Cause Reboots?

kbreeden · 10-06-2007, 01:33 PM

Hello all,

I'm trying to troubleshoot a problem I'm having with reboots. The system seems to be rebooting everytime I stress it. Typically, it happens when I have a large playlist loaded in RoadRunner and then launch iGuidance 4.0, or vice versa. After reboot I get a message that says "Windows has recovered from a serious error."

I have 1gig of RAM which Memtest says is okay. The CPU is a fairly new P4 2.4gig. OS is Windows XP.

Could the reboots be caused by insufficient memory? Or would insufficient memory just generate a hang or an low memory error message?

Could it be from a faulty CPU? I know it got hot enough to shut down the computer a couple of times this summer, but it would seem to me that if a CPU was failing it wouldn't work at all.

Thanks in advance.

mt2man · 10-06-2007, 05:46 PM

I had the same problem with the pc im currently using to type this message, everytime i had to many applications open or i put my pc under "stress" it would shut down. I orginally thought that i did not have sufficent ram but i had 1gb and my pc was a reasonalbe spec so it should have handled what i was running fine but then one day it completely stopped working. It turned out the CPU was faulty and eventually died completely, i changed the CPU and havent had a problem since.

I am by no means an expert but i am just sharing what happend to me and how i solved the problem.

Many thanks Jack

marshallh · 10-07-2007, 12:01 AM

I had that exact problem - running a 900MHz Duron. I didn't observe static handling precautions and damaged it while installing it. It worked fine until a minor storm. I replaced my RAM (which was also bad) but the CPU still caused random reboots/STOP errors. (CPU issues will also cause memory to show as bad in Memtest86).

Replaced with a 1.2ghz CPU - all was well. Except, I had to recap the motherboard. Then I threw it away

But no - if you run out of physical memory, things will just slow down worse and worse, never crash.

kbreeden · 10-07-2007, 12:34 PM

Thanks for your replies. My CPU overheated a couple of times over the summer and based on your experience it looks like that is the problem. Time to go CPU shopping.