These sound very much like software problems (which may well
be related to hardware), rather than memory problems.

When you program in C or C++, the two most common languages
in non-business computing, you use what are known as "pointers,"
which are, simply put, addresses in memory.  A frequent error is
to forget to set the value of a pointer, which then gets the default
value of zero.  When the code goes to the zero memory location,
the system traps it (because the system owns that location), and
gives you an error, usually "general protection fault."  You can get
the same error for other problems, too.  This is a "null data pointer
variable," i.e. null=zero; data pointer variable = address.
null = zero = default "unitialized" value.

If a pointer erroneously has a value that is outside of the memory
that the program "owns," then a protection fault can also occur.

We see many questions in this list which refer to general protection
errors.  They are not necessarily bad programming - just things that
do not work together for some reason.  (It is really quite amazing that
Windows itself works so well on so many different systems.)

This is not much help in solving your problem, I know, but it does
answer your question on whether or not it is a problem with
bad memory.  It **could be**, but the likelihood is very small,
especially since your system does a memory check every time
you turn it on.

I hope this helps a little.

Dean Kukral  [log in to unmask]



-----Original Message-----
From: Ken & Barbie <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Tuesday, August 03, 1999 2:15 PM
Subject: [PCBUILD] System Crashes (Dr. Watson)


Hello, I'm running Win98 on a Abit tx mainboard, Intel 233mmx,
64mb pc100 ram. The system frequently crashes when I'm
shutting down a program. The same 2 errors seem to generate
each time with different programs. I'm running Dr. Watson  in the
task bar with all the latest drivers installed for the hardware.
The system is about 3 months new, but has ran flaky from the start.

Dr. Watson results:
1)Win32 Kernel core component *attempted to read from memory that does not
exist.  It may be using an uninitialized variable, or it may be attempting
to access memory after having freed it.

2)System APIs for Multimedia *attempted to use a null data pointer variable.

* = general error's

Does this sound more like a physical memory problem as opposed
to a software problem? Memory vender say's software, I think otherwise
and could use some advice from the list scholars on your thoughts.

Thanks, Ken Cornell

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