Hardware Reference
In-Depth Information
worth noting that some browsers may rename the BIOS BIN file with an EXE
file extension during the download. If this happens you will need to rename
the file with the correct extension (BIN)
before
using the FLASH upgrade
program. It can also be important to ensure that memory managers (such as
HIMEM.SYS and EMM386.EXE) are not resident when the flash upgrade is
running.
Troubleshooting
Windows problems
Anyone who has been involved with PC's at anything more than the basic user
level will almost certainly have come across the unhelpful (and occasionally
totally incomprehensible) error messages that Windows, in all its incarnations,
is capable of generating! Windows problems can be arranged into the following
main categories:
•
Invalid page faults
•
General protection faults
•
Fatal exceptions
•
Protection errors
•
Kernel errors
•
Dynamic link library (DLL) faults.
At this stage it's worth noting that modern CPUs are designed to detect
situations in which an executable program attempts to do something that is
nonsensical or 'invalid' in terms of the hardware and software configuration of
the system. The most common problems are stack faults, invalid instructions,
divide errors (divide by zero), and general protection faults. These can often be
caused by malfunctioning or badly constructed code in a program.
Invalid page faults
Invalid page faults can occur for any of the following reasons:
•
An unexpected event has occurred in Windows. An invalid page fault error
message often indicates that a program improperly attempted to use random
access memory (RAM). For example, this error message can occur if a pro-
gram or a Windows component reads or writes to a memory location that is
not allocated to it. When this happens the program can potentially overwrite
and corrupt other program code in that area of memory.
•
A program has requested data that is not currently in virtual memory, and
Windows attempts to retrieve the data from a storage device and load it into
RAM. An invalid page fault error message can occur if Windows is unable
to locate the data. This is often the case when the virtual memory area has
become corrupted for some reason.
•
The virtual memory system has become unstable because of insufficient
physical memory (RAM).
•
The virtual memory system has become unstable because of a insufficient
free disk space.
•
The virtual memory area has been corrupted by a program.
•
A program is attempting to access data that is being modified by another
program that is running.
