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- Feb 28, 2001
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This evening, I went to use my computer and the darned thing was showing a message "We detected an error and are collecting data for you. We will restart in a few minutes." Except it didn't restart at all. That screen gave me one more useful tidbit... "Page fault in a non-fault area." Several reboots failed to work using the power button or pulling the plug. No attempts worked correctly (at all) and in fact I started getting a sequence of triple-beep, pause, triple-beep, pause... for as long as it had power. I just about had the coronary event in the title until I calmed down and thought about it.
The purpose of this post is actually to advise folks what to try first if they have never seen this error.
IF you ever see this, the FIRST PLACE TO LOOK is to open up your 'puter and try to tightly reseat your memory cards. I cannot tell you exactly how it happened, but one or more of my memory cards must have gotten loose in their slots. Since I took my computer in the back of my car to Alabama after Hurricane Ida went through, I imagine there was some vibration even though I cushioned everything.
Anyway, when I properly reseated the memory cards AND tightened the edge clips top and bottom, it rebooted without further problems (and in fact I'm using it now to file this note.) I observed that the cards were vertically aligned, so the bottom clips, if vibrated loose, COULD have fallen down (and thus opened), after which one or more of the cards could become loose in the socket with just a little vibration like bumping the desk. (After all, it IS a desktop box.)
Took a little bit of doing to get the bottom clips tight because my big fat fingers don't work well in tight spaces. But with patience and a small-bladed screwdriver to act as a lever, I got it done. Remember, with memory, there are edge clips at BOTH ends and they must be tight to prevent slippage.
Now... that error message "Page fault in a non-page area" means that when the 'puter tried to access a section of memory that SHOULD have been resident (probably because it was part of the Windows Kernel or anything in the non-paged pool), it wasn't there. So Windows took a page fault in an area that was reserved to hold permanently resident information that CAN'T page fault. To be honest, I'm surprised it managed that much as to give me that error message.
Anyway, i reseated the cards carefully, buttoned it up, rebooted the box, and everything works again.
The purpose of this post is actually to advise folks what to try first if they have never seen this error.
IF you ever see this, the FIRST PLACE TO LOOK is to open up your 'puter and try to tightly reseat your memory cards. I cannot tell you exactly how it happened, but one or more of my memory cards must have gotten loose in their slots. Since I took my computer in the back of my car to Alabama after Hurricane Ida went through, I imagine there was some vibration even though I cushioned everything.
Anyway, when I properly reseated the memory cards AND tightened the edge clips top and bottom, it rebooted without further problems (and in fact I'm using it now to file this note.) I observed that the cards were vertically aligned, so the bottom clips, if vibrated loose, COULD have fallen down (and thus opened), after which one or more of the cards could become loose in the socket with just a little vibration like bumping the desk. (After all, it IS a desktop box.)
Took a little bit of doing to get the bottom clips tight because my big fat fingers don't work well in tight spaces. But with patience and a small-bladed screwdriver to act as a lever, I got it done. Remember, with memory, there are edge clips at BOTH ends and they must be tight to prevent slippage.
Now... that error message "Page fault in a non-page area" means that when the 'puter tried to access a section of memory that SHOULD have been resident (probably because it was part of the Windows Kernel or anything in the non-paged pool), it wasn't there. So Windows took a page fault in an area that was reserved to hold permanently resident information that CAN'T page fault. To be honest, I'm surprised it managed that much as to give me that error message.
Anyway, i reseated the cards carefully, buttoned it up, rebooted the box, and everything works again.
Glad you got it resolved and are sharing the experience.
