Windows XP - Limit the working memory for troubleshooting

If your computer is constantly freezing, your games or applications are crashing or the famous blue screen of death is taking over your computer, good advice is expensive. In many cases, overheating problems with the Processors or the Graphics card is just as important as a not very powerful power supply unit (400 watts is recommended).

However, a defective RAM module can also cause such annoyances, which is why it is highly recommended that you have your existing RAM either replaced or limited. The latter only makes sense if you have two RAM modules. For example, a computer with 2 x 256 MB modules (512) can be limited to 256 MB to find out whether the second module is defective. If this is not the case, you should swap the modules immediately and then carry out this limitation again so that the second module can also be dragged to its check. And this is how you proceed:

Detect defective working memory

1. Open the workstation and click in the bar on Extras > Folder options > View and remove the checkmark in front of Hide protected system files (recommended). Confirm the message with OK.

2. Now move the scroll bar further down and activate the option AShow all files and folders. Click on OK. Now double-click on drive C:\ (or on the drive where your Windows is installed) and open the file Boot.ini. Now search for the line (it may differ slightly from this one):

[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINXP="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect

Carry them behind the /fastdetect the parameter /MAXMEM=256 in. Save the file and restart. Your first restart will already show a completely new side, as your computer has become 256 MB smaller and only has the same amount of memory left. However, we recommend that you never set a value below 64, as otherwise Windows XP will no longer boot.
Now put your computer through its paces and check whether the crashes still occur. If not, then it is probably due to your installed RAM and you will be forced to upgrade your system with completely new memory modules, for better or worse.

However, if you have not found any errors with the first module, we advise you to remove the first module and install the other one in the second slot. Now use only the additional 256 MB (as in our example) and test it - if you have a third memory module, we recommend that you also test it.

NOTE FOR NEW PUBLICATION: This article was produced by Sandro Villinger and comes from the Windows Tweaks archive, which has been built up since the late 1990s.