what causes a memory dump in NT 4.0

A memory dump is when the operating system pukes but then writes a diagnostic file to disk that contains all the information in RAM at the time the error occurred.

The memory dump file is called memory.dmp or user.dmp and can be used to diagnosethe cause for the failure by analyzing it with a tool called dumpexam.exe to determine the address at which the failure occurred and what piece of software was running at that address.

Typically, the problem will turn out to be a device driver; video drivers seem to be the most common problem followed by NIC and drive controllers. Once you've identified the offending device driver, the correction is to install an updated version.

You can also take the information presented on the screen when the failure occurs and use that to search in the Microsoft Knowledge Base for known problems and solutions. If you search on the term 'blue screen', you'll come up with several articles that describe how to track down the cause once you have that information.

paul

One thing that I have found on a memory dump is bad RAM. Change the RAM chips and see if oyou get the message.

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