Does a Windows laptop check its RAM memory during the POST?

Most likely your problem is heat. I bet the fan is filled with dustbunnies.

Depends what you mean by “check”. It most likely does not do any diagnostic memory test. Typically a POST routine will do enough memory access to exercise all the memory address lines and determine how much RAM you have installed.

@I_Hate_To_See_You_Suffer ‘s answer is a reasonable possibility. But the issue could be RAM too. There are RAM test programs that do exhaustive pattern writing/reading/testing. I don’t have a specific one to recommend but snoop around on CNET or other reputable freeware repositories.

A lot of laptops have a hatch cover over the RAM so you can upgrade etc. It’s worth a try to open that up and (with power off!!) pull the RAM modules out and reseat them, you could just have poor connection at the sockets.

Irrespective of the installed OS, during POST any computer only checks if and how much memory is available. Actual integrity checks would take too long, and by too long, I mean hours.

@ragingloli Only on an older, slower system. Last time I ran a full memory test, it took closer to 45 minutes for a full cycle; not bad for 3GB.

I use a Ubuntu boot/install CD for memory checks. Many Linux distros have the Memory Test option on their install discs.

Also, if you have multiple RAM sticks try running your computer with each RAM stick individually. That might narrow it down to a certain RAM stick or none at all. Overheating might be an issue as well. Depending on make and model, you might be able to check that in the BIOS. Sometimes just putting a little thermal grease on the processor does the trick with overheating issues. Also dust bunnies as mentioned above could be helping overheat and shut your computer down. Let us know your progress.

Try checking for dust in the cooling system. That reminds me – I should check my desktop computer. It has been doing the same thing. Last time I checked, it was loaded with dust bunnies.

Thanks, everybody, for your replies. I hadn’t thought of the dust bunnies, but that is a definite possibility, as the laptop is several years old and had never been cleaned out.

But, I’ve thought of another possibility: what if an occasionally-used system file got corrupted? In that case, maybe the computer will work OK for a while, then when this file is needed, the system crashes. What do you folks think? But would a re-install of the OS (Win XP Pro) over-write my personal files (photos, documents, etc.)?

If cleaning out the dust bunnies doesn’t do it, I’m tempted to try this, but only if it doesn’t wipe out my files.

@dabbler and @jerv I assume you both mean memory-checking software that I could download, right?

@2davidc8 yes, memory testing software. @jerv‘s suggestion of a linux-based bootable disk or USB drive is an excellent idea. With something like that you can run the test completely independent of your system files.

I like Ultimate Boot CD which also contains Partedmagic. Partedmagic used to be my “go to” tool, but then I went a bit meta. Memtest is in there.

The nice thing about live CDs is that they do not make any permanent alterations to your system unless you explicitly tell it to do so (like formatting and repartitioning drives). Just booting and running tests won’t change anything in your Windows setup.

@jerv Thank you. Does re-installing the OS affect my personal files (photos, documents, etc.)?

Re-installing may or may not affect your personal files; it’s safest to back them up just in case. Sometimes they are fine, sometimes they are locked away somewhere, and sometimes just deleted, and you cannot always tell which way it will go (unless you format the drive, in which case you know they will be deleted).

I hate it when a thread just dissolves into thin air without any indication as to how the original problem was resolved. I’ll try not to do that to you. So, in case you were following this with some interest, here is (as far as I can tell) what happened.

When I originally posted this, I was starting to get the following symptoms on a fairly regular basis:
1. Disk read error on startup.
2. Sudden reboot upon accessing a new web page.
3. Sometimes after the computer had been left idle for a while, I would see a “Windows recovered from a serious error” message. But the computer appeared to work normally afterwards.
4. Sudden shutdown.
Then one day I got an error message saying that the system could not start up because the following file was corrupted:
c:\windows\system32\system

It suggested that I might try to repair (or maybe the word used was “recover”) by inserting the Windows setup CD and hitting “r’ at the first screen. When I did this, it seemed to copy or load a bunch of files, and then a “Setup” screen appeared where I had 3 choices:
1. Install Win XP
2. Repair (hit “r”)
3. Quit

As instructed, I chose option 2. This did nothing but take me to the DOS prompt, where no command was available to me that resembled recover or repair. I guess there was no recovery partition ever set up on this computer. So, I typed “exit” to quit DOS, and did everything all over.

Once again, it copied and loaded a bunch of files and came to the “Setup” screen. I took a chance that maybe the “System” file was one of those files that were loaded (and hopefully fixed), so I chose Option 3 (quit). Surprisingly, the system booted seemingly OK. I was able to work on a Word doc and the wireless internet connection was working because Norton 360 reported successfully backing up 7 files online. But actually not all was good as neither IE nor Firefox would start up. I should have stopped here and copied everything that I wanted to keep off to a thumb drive or something. I was ready to quit for the day, so (silly me) I shut down the computer.

The next day, same old problem on startup. Once again, I used the Win setup disk. Option 3 did not work this time. So, I chose Option 2 and got to the DOS prompt. This time I decided to run chkdsk. The program exited immediately with a message saying that the hard drive seemed OK on a superficial level, but that the command should be run with parameters if I wanted a more detailed action. So, I ran chkdsk /p. This time it exited quickly, too, but said that there were serious, unrecoverable, errors. It seemed that yet another file had become corrupted: partmgr.sys.

I then decided to try Option 1 (install XP) in Setup. I was hoping that the program would install the OS in the system folders and leave my docs alone. I came to a screen that showed that there were 3 partitions on the HD: a small FAT partition, a large partition of “undefined” file system, and a small “undefined” partition, all showing 0 bytes.

At this point I realized that there was no way for me to fix this myself. I took the laptop to my local computer shop, where the tech was able to recover all the files off the HD. The first program that he tried for the recovery could not read the drive correctly at all. But the next one worked great. He said that he’s got 4 different programs that he can try for cases like this. Sometimes one’ll work while another won’t for some strange reason.

In summary, here are my conclusions: heat, due to improper ventilation and dust buildup (as @I_Hate_To_See_You_Suffer @dabbler @lukiarobecheck and @RocketGuy mentioned), caused system instability and frequent errors and reboots. (There was indeed dust inside when we opened it up.) Over time, some system files began to get corrupted. Some of these files are not ones that are used all the time, so most of the time I could still use the computer. But once in a while when one of these files was needed, poof! The system would crash. Finally, the system file got corrupted and then I was really stuck.

What do you think of my conclusions?

Sounds about right.