How can I deallocate corrupt Memory?

John Savill

March 4, 1999

1 Min Read
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A. If you get the blue screen or Dr. Watson often. Your Memory may be corrupt or you have mixed the Memory.

For testing this FAQ I have mixed two EDO-SIMM (2x16 MB) with two normal SIMM (2x16 MB) on a ASUS-Board P55 TP4-XE (This board can use mixed Memory). After this I often received Dr. Watson errors.

You should use the MAXMEM-Switch in Boot.ini to deactivate the corrupt memory bank until such time mixed memory is not longer in the mother-board. The MAXMEM switch will always use the lowest physical memory addresses, and therefore always uses bank0+. During the NT boot process NT probes the memory hard to make sure that it is really there and working -- generating a blue-screen if any memory tests fail.

  1. Set the attributes on boot.ini so you can edit it
    C:> attrib c:boot.ini -r -s -h

  2. Edit boot.ini and add the Switch e.g /MAXMEM=32 to the end of your Windows NT option, e.g.
    multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)WINNT="Windows NT Workstation Version 4.00" /maxmem=32

  3. Save the file and reset the attributes:
    C:> attrib c:boot.ini +r +s +h

  4. Reboot

Windows NT uses this switch and limits the whole memory from 64 to 32 MB and chooses only the good memory bank. You can also use this Switch to observe the swapping process if limiting the whole memory.

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