How do you resolve the physical memory dumping nag?

MY COMPUTER IS NOT ON LINE AND IS USED INA SCHOOL SETTING. IT NOW FLASHES A BLUE DUMPING PHYSICAL MEMEORY AND FREEZES before i can save anything. what should i do. delll was no help even though i have a three year warranty. they said it was a software problem so i reinstalled microsoft office and it still happened again. can you give me some suggestions

my dell lattitude l 400, 3.3 pound with an externalcd rom drive etc. it has norton anti virus

This question was answered on September 24, 2003. Much of the information contained herein may have changed since posting.

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There are several methods to resolve this issue Follow the instructions in

the first section If the problem is not resolved, proceed to the next

section.

I Resize the Swap File

When a serious error occurs, by default the system dumps the system state to

the swap file for later retrieval However, it is possible that the swap

file is not properly cleaned up and the system thinks that it is rebooting

from a crash To resolve this, you will need to resize the swap file:

1 Click the Start button.

2 Right click the My Computer menu option, and then click Properties on the

context menu that appears.

3 Click the Advanced tab, and then click the Settings button in the

Performance section.

The Performance Options window appears.

4 Click the Advanced tab, and then click the Change button in the Virtual

Memory section.

The Virtual memory window appears.

5 Click Custom Size, and then record the Initial Size and Maximum Size.

6 Set the Initial Size and Maximum Size to the same value as the amount of

RAM that is installed in the system.

7 Click Set and then click OK The system will advise you to restart the

computer.

8 Click OK.

9 Click OK at the Performance Options window The system prompts you to

restart the computer.

10 Click Yes.

After the system has restarted, repeat the above steps to restore the

original Initial Size and Maximum Size values for your swap file.

II Delete the Minidump Files and the Sysdata.xml File

When a serious error occurs, by default the system writes out a miniature

memory dump along with an XML description of the system status (which notes

the program at fault and other pertinent system data) that can be uploaded

to Microsoft If this data is not correctly closed out, the system may

present a Serious Error screen upon boot To resolve this problem, perform

the following steps:

1 Click the Start button.

2 Right click the My Computer icon, and then click Explore on the context

menu that appears.

3 Browse to the c:\Windows\Minidump directory.

4 Delete everything located in this directory.

NOTE : You will need to be able to view hidden and system files and the

system should not be hiding protected operating system files.

5 Browse to the c:\Documents and Settings folder.

6 Search for the following file: sysdata.xml file.

7 Delete all instances (you may find more than one) of this file.

8 Click the Start button, click Turn off the computer, and then click

Restart.

III Disable the Automatically Restart setting

This attacks the same class of Serious Errors that resizing the swap file

fixes, but it tries to ensure that the errors do not happen beforehand.

However, this does not help to rid the persistent Serious Error message

after the fact.

1 Click the Start button.

2 Right click the My Computer icon, and then click Properties on the

context menu that appears.

3 Click the Advanced tab and then click the Settings button in the

Start-up and Recovery section.

4 Click to remove the check next to Automatically Restart checkbox and

then click OK.

5 Click OK The system will no longer automatically restart after a

Serious Error message appears.

IV Disable Memory Dumps

This option totally disables memory dumps altogether, which may help fix

some persistent Serious Error messages To disable memory dumps, perform the

following steps:

1 Click the Start button

2 Right click the My Computer icon, and then click Properties on the

context menu that appears.

3 Click the Advanced tab, and then click the Settings button in the

Start-up and Recovery section.

4 In the Write debugging information tab, click to select (none) and then

click OK.

5 Click OK.

The system will no longer perform a memory dump when it encounters a Serious

Error.

About the author

Posted by Student of Katharine Gibbs School - New York on September 24, 2003

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