Something going haywire

[Maj]

I'm running Win 98 SE on a Cel 400 and am having a helluva time with a problem I've never before encountered.

For reasons beyond my knowledge my computer powered down as I was in the middle of typing a letter in Word. When I tried to reboot I was given the following message:

Error: HIMEM.SYS has detected unreliable XMS memory at address 04000016
XMS driver not installed

I'd have to restart ...

The next round I tried Step-by-Step confirmation and arrived at this message:

Invalid VxD dynamic link to device 3, service B

Finally, when trying to boot in Safemode I was told:

HIMEM.sys is missing

(when after a quick check in DOS I found the file to be sitting in its corner of C:/Windows, weighing in at a healthy 32 kB.)

This time around my computer booted up normally. But as it was initializing I received another error which sent my computer rebooting.

NOW, my computer seems to be in good health but I have no idea how to explain the sequence of events between my typing a letter to my begging for technical support.

I'm going to run a virus check, although I don't see how my system could have been infected. I haven't downloaded any attachments or executables and all the CD's I have are legitimate.

Any theories and help would be greatly appreciated.

Sad news is I need this computer up and running so I can finish a contract that will bring in what I need to buy a new one

cheers

Maj

 

[CrackedCrystal]

Originally posted by Maj
Error: HIMEM.SYS has detected unreliable XMS memory at address 04000016
XMS driver not installed

This may be bad RAM.

Just to give you a little info about your problem so you know what is going on, back in the days of DOS, computers were limited to 1MB of RAM. This started to become a problem as programs required larger amounts of memory. Microsoft attempted to solve this problem by creating the Extended Memory Specification or XMS for short. HIMEM is a driver that creates the XMS in order for programs to use the memory past the 1MB limit.

What might be occuring is the memory the XMS is trying to use is faulty.

Go to www.simmtester.com
They have some software to test system memory.

 

[bladester]

CrackedCrystal is right, most likely it is bad ram.
If you have mutliple ram chips installed you could using only 1 at a time and see if it works there.

@CrackedCrystal, wasn't the limit 640k in the days of dos and the problem being that programs could only be loaded into that barrier only (before the extended memory)?

 

[CrackedCrystal]

Originally posted by bladester
@CrackedCrystal, wasn't the limit 640k in the days of dos and the problem being that programs could only be loaded into that barrier only (before the extended memory)?

Well, computers had 1MB, but programs were only able to use 640K of it. DOS required the upper 384K for system reservation (from 640K - 1024K).

So you are right, the programs had to be loaded within the 640K barrier. HIMEM would load itself in the lower areas of RAM and conceptually make a bridge to the upper areas.