Anatomy of a hang

[tw]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

... So the whole process has also killed a stick of memory. Will this madness never end?

It is called shotgunning. Trying to fix a problem rather than first learn what is wrong. Provided were some ideas of how to find a problem long before fixing anything. Break the problem down into parts - test individual system parts - and don't change anything.

Memory test - or what burn-in really is. Don't swap memory. Run a comprehensive memory diagnostic - either one provided by a responsible computer manufacturer or a third party diagnostic such as Memtst86 or Docmem. Execute diagnostic one or two passes. Even bad memory sometimes passes that test. And then we use burn-in - a concept completely misunderstood by those who used English interpretation to assume burn-in means running overnight.

Heat memory with a hairdryer on highest setting. A tropical paradise to good memory and hell to bad memory. Bad memory heated above 100 degree F often will expose itself as the pervert it really is. Otherwise move computer outside to 30 degree weather and leave it run the same memory diagnostic for maybe an hour. Accomplishes same thing that busterb discussed with coolant spray.

And yes, once I heated the oven to just over 100 degrees, put the clone computer in that oven, and found a defective cache Ram.

If memory passes both heat and cold test, then memory is fine. Move on to other suspects. If a memory stick has been damaged, well that is but another reason to not shotgun.

I have watched others swap memory because the new memory was defective. They did not use anti-static protection which is especially critical if room humidity is below 40%. Therefore memory that worked just fine on a memory diagnostic at 70 degrees was really defective - maybe static damaged. Just another problem with shotgunning. A problem created by another flawed assumption that parts (once thought to be good) will always be good.

Don't swap things. First collect facts. As a result of shotgun diagnostic techniques, you are now spending vast sums of money.

And yes, I am also concerned with that Hardrive0 being drive D. Something is wrong - just another fact that should be collected before changing anything. Does your drive have multiple partitions or were you running a master / slave combination as I originally asked? Answer is found in Disk Management program - among other places.

Meanwhile, get the comprehensive diagnostic from the hard drive manufacturer. Why? Among other things, because a diagnostic eliminates many unknown variables - ie Windows which is a massive variable. Every test is about stripping a problem down into parts - and then testing those parts - all without physically changing hardware. Don't even look at Windows until hardware diagnostics declare hardware good. And yes, that also means temperature cycling - ie the hair dryer - also called burn-in.