Constant crashes and blue screens? Check this!

Hi all,

Long story short. I purchased a new Dell laptop with Nvidia 8600m GT graphics, running XP Pro, 3gb RAM back in April. Ever since that day, I have been unable to reliably use SL. I was getting many crashes to desktop, sometimes the blue screen of death (BSOD). Other times it would report the Nvidia driver as stopping. The laptop appeared fine in all other applications.

I have tried everything, including Vista, but still crashed. I was starting to think I had a faulty laptop, when I realised what was going on.

This fix is only valid on your system if you are using a Windows 32 bit operating system.

I tried removing 1gb of the ram, and the laptop has been faultless ever since. This is not, faulty ram, it is down to how much memory a 32 bit operating system can address, and while people will tell you that XP and Vista 32 bit can use more than 2gb, it can and does cause issues with some systems with some applications, SL being one of them.

So, in a nutshell, if you are crashing randomly, running XP or Vista 32 bit, and have more than 2gb ram, reduce the ram to 2gb and give it a try.

Since removing the additional GB of ram, I have not had a single crash, and have been online for up to 7 hours in a single session.

Good luck!

Hello Temper, I'm having the exact issues you had, have the same graphics card you do only my pc is made my HP and I run vista 64bit. You seem to have some insight and no one is responding to my post and LL has been franking useless, telling me to upgrade graphics drivers which I did and did with old wiped clean, the pc works splendidly in all other high end graphics games only sl gives problems, blue screen of death and crash to the desk top, sometimes I can go a few hours and be find, other times it crashes every ten mins. I'd really appreciate any suggestions you might have, thanks so much__Melody Rives

How did you test the memory module, and were you able to duplicate the problem with a different one?

The memory module is not the issue, the laptop and sl will run perfect with either module installed (1 or 2gb), but not with both. 32 bit systems only have an infinate number of memory addresses available, beyond which, some "fudging" is required to effectively allow it to use more than 2gb. While that may work on most applications, SL appears to be an exception due to the amount of memory it likes to consume.

I posted only to share my findings, it takes but a few minutes to try, and the memory can easily be put back if it does not work.

Hello Melody,

I am not sure what to suggest in your case as I run 32 bit. The additional memory should not affect you, as it would with a 32 bit system. That said, it is always possible there could be a fault, Might be worth removing one module at a time and seeing if there is an improvement.

Good luck.