BF2142 Memory Error in memory.dll

[Sir_Brass]

This is the second time I've gotten this error. When it occurs, the game completely hangs my system for about 5 minutes (even after I've hit cntrl-alt-delete), and the error says something about a function (I forget what its called) and "should not go here."

This has happened when I try and create a custom squad, click on the icon to lock it, and then click in the text field to enter the name (usually either 9th MID or Sniper). It's when I click the text field that EVERYTHING hangs, and my computer starts to access my HDD like mad, looking for something.

This doesn't happen every time I go through this custom squad creation process, but in the two times that it HAS happened, it's been while doing this.

ANy of you computer coding wizzes have any inkling as to what could be going on, or whether we're going to have to put our faith in EA to fix this (yeah...right...good luck). Salad, any input you could give?

[Zoopy_T]

I got this once after overclocking my RAM. I set my RAM back to it's normal settings and never got it again. Not sure exactly what it is though. Also when overclocked, 2142 would crash all the time.

So my question is, do you have your RAM overclocked?

[Acreo Aeneas]

No, that's not a error due to bad coding on EA's part (we wish). It's a memory error. Have you run memtest86 on your physical memory (right after POST)? If it comes up with failed tests or other errors, then the memory your using is not good.

[Sir_Brass]

how do I do that, run memtest86? And how the heck do I do it after POST but before the OS loads?

The RAM I have is Kingston DDR400 RAM running in dual channel. I bought it (2 sticks of 512 MB RAM) when I bought the mobo (about a year and a half ago).

And I don't have anything overclocked.

[Acreo Aeneas]

Okay, download memtest86+ ISO here: http://www.memtest.org/

Then burn the ISO onto a blank CD as an image not as data.

After that, place the CD into your CD/DVD-ROM (whichever you have).

Restart your system. At time of POST (Power On Self Test), you need to press F1 for setup/BIOS (it will vary depending on your motherboard, so look on the screen where where it says something like this: "Press Fx now to enter setup". Replace Fx with F1 - F12, or whatever is displayed on screen. Sometimes it may say BIOS instead of setup.)

After you are in BIOS, go to the Boot Priority and reconfigurate it so the your DVD-Rom/CD-Rom is first.

Save changes and exit.

System will now reboot. After POSTing the system will read from your CD/DVD-ROM and on screen it will say: "Press any key to boot from CD..." Just press your Enter/Return key.

From there memtest86+ should start running through the standard tests. Give it about 1 to 4 hours depending on how fast your machine CPU is (about 1.5 hours on a 2.66 GHz Pentium D).


If the one of the tests fail or such, then the memory you have in there may be at fault. I say maybe, because sometimes it could be the motherboard and not the memory (as such was the case with my old GA board).

If you feel you would like to test your motherboard as well, I have a older utility you can try. It'll need to be booted from floppy disk, so you'll need to change your boot order again.

[Jaykay]

I bought an extra gig of RAM last week to make the game run more smoothly, and I'll be damned if both sticks AND one replacement stick were bad. The store must have received a case of RAM from a bad batch.

Symptoms were that the game would crash out to desktop when enough textures had loaded into RAM to fill it to the part that was bad.

[Sir_Brass]

Hmm, well, the RAM I did purchase was Kingston Value RAM....the basic stuff.

I've been considering getting about 2 GB (1GB per stick) of low latency RAM to increase performance, though I think that maybe also getting a cpu upgrade (I got a 939pin mobo when it was being thought that 939 was going to become the new standard and no one had a real idea that AM2 was going to replace it so soon), but finding a good 939 pin Athalon 64 that is powerful enough to justify spending the $$ to replace mine (a 3500+ w/ 130 nm process....I should've gone for the sandiego, not the clawhammer) is hard to do....

I also need to upgrade my video card.

So......I figure that the best use of my $$ will come in replacing mobo, vid card (to a good Dx10 one when they come out), and CPU all in one whack.

Also, I have yet to have a memory.dll problem today, and I only have about $600 in savings right now that I need to save until I've gotten enough in income to justify spending $$ (and even then the first purchase will be in getting the pball marker I've been wanting for quite some time now).

[Acreo Aeneas]

Honestly, memory errors come down to your motherboard and your RAM. It's either one, the other, or both. Some RAM will cause errors paired with certain motherboards, and other RAM will cause no problems with most motherboards.

@Jaykay, that sounds like faulty memory to me. I hope you bought reputable RAM like Kingston or Corsair. When you buy RAM, there's several things you need to know first. If your running dual channel, then the RAM should be the same manufacturer, model, same sided (single or double), memory size, voltage, timings, and arrangement. If not, then the memory should at least be the same voltage.

There really only two good options. Run memtest on your RAM on your current motherboard and on another motherboard that accepts your current RAM. So if the RAM checks out on your current mobo, but not on the other, then the RAM is likely bad. Vice versa, then your current mobo is likely at fault. But if on both boards, the RAM doesn't check out, then it could be the RAM and your mobo. If the memory checks out on both boards, then it could be your current motherboard, but it becomes a throw up. If you guys have experienced other crashing in other programs or games, then RAM would be the first suspect followed by the motherboard. BSODs are also a good indicator of bad RAM or failing motherboards.

Honestly, I'm not sure what to recommend that you do, since I don't know the manufacturer of your individual motherboards, model, length of time it's been in use, and other factors.

One mobo manufacturer I can recommend is ASUS. I haven't owned them in the past, but I've gone through several brands, and ASUS checks out memory quite well. They even list which brands and models work with their specific mobo. Quality is exceptional and they're known to work well with Intel chipsets and CPUs. Likewise with AMD chips.

[KingsRevenge]

I get this annoying error from time to time, usually it seems to only occur when Cebere Landing is the 2nd map ato load after I play one round on one map and one other map only. Before I was getting it before I did this, make your pagefile pretty huge about an extra 2-3 gig. Another thing is when I stopped doing unlocks during gameplay I didn't get these errors. The best way to do unlocks is keep playing and pick them after your done playing.

[Jaykay]

Im a loooong time Giga-Byte man; haven't used ASUS ever. This particular mobo is a P4 model @ 3GHz, and it's been in service for probably 4 years with the same RAM in it.

The problems only started after I added the 2 new sticks (3 with the one I returned the first day.) Memtest showed 3 bad registers in only 5 minutes on the first stick and seven bad registers in only a few minutes on the 2nd stick.

The board was 2.4Ghz for most of it's life, and got a fresh 3Ghz CPU (and a bump to 800MHz bus) when I bought 2142. All stock clock rates, altho it overclocks and stays at 3.3GHz with no troubles.

[Acreo Aeneas]

Okay I went and searched deeper into this problem. (About a good 2 weeks of research)

And I can conclude it's either virus/malware on your system or a hardware conflict. I think the problem lies in having the right drivers installed for each piece of your hardware. My suggestion would be to go through every single piece of hardware in your machine and make sure you have the proper drivers installed. I don't recommend using the generic Windows drivers, unless your piece of hardware no longer has tailored drivers (from manufacturer or otherwise).

@Jaykay Well all I know is I would get memory errors running memtest after POST on my old gigabyte mobo with all kinds of memory, especially new out of the box ones. I swapped in all my generic and "new" mem into my ASUS and I get no memory errors whatsoever. So I can only conclude it was the motherboard and not the memory.

A little interesting fact: Back in the day of the first Pentium 1. ASUS was the only board manufacturer able to get the very first P1 to work on a motherboard. In fact, Intel couldn't get their own chip to work in a mobo built by Intel. And ASUS didn't even have the chip. They built their mobo according to the released specifications of the Intel Pentium chip. That goes to show the quality of ASUS boards. Not that Intel doesn't make good stuff (their #2 in my eyes).

[HaZe303]

Originally Posted by Acreo Aeneas

Okay I went and searched deeper into this problem. (About a good 2 weeks of research)

And I can conclude it's either virus/malware on your system or a hardware conflict. I think the problem lies in having the right drivers installed for each piece of your hardware. My suggestion would be to go through every single piece of hardware in your machine and make sure you have the proper drivers installed. I don't recommend using the generic Windows drivers, unless your piece of hardware no longer has tailored drivers (from manufacturer or otherwise).

@Jaykay Well all I know is I would get memory errors running memtest after POST on my old gigabyte mobo with all kinds of memory, especially new out of the box ones. I swapped in all my generic and "new" mem into my ASUS and I get no memory errors whatsoever. So I can only conclude it was the motherboard and not the memory.

A little interesting fact: Back in the day of the first Pentium 1. ASUS was the only board manufacturer able to get the very first P1 to work on a motherboard. In fact, Intel couldn't get their own chip to work in a mobo built by Intel. And ASUS didn't even have the chip. They built their mobo according to the released specifications of the Intel Pentium chip. That goes to show the quality of ASUS boards. Not that Intel doesn't make good stuff (their #2 in my eyes).

Youre totally wrong. This is actually a bad Dice/EA coding issue. Specially in Windows Vista/geforce 8800gtx. Im having this issue aswell, and so is many others. This has nothing to do with Ram, Mobo, or even drivers. This is totally a issue with Dice coding. It happens more on some specific hardware, yes thats true. But its not happening because of faulty hardware/drivers.

So Sir BRass, dont worry, youre hardware is just fine.

Edit: There is no fix for this ATM!?

[SkilleRStyLe]

Originally Posted by HaZe303

Youre totally wrong. This is actually a bad Dice/EA coding issue. Specially in Windows Vista/geforce 8800gtx. Im having this issue aswell, and so is many others. This has nothing to do with Ram, Mobo, or even drivers. This is totally a issue with Dice coding. It happens more on some specific hardware, yes thats true. But its not happening because of faulty hardware/drivers.

So Sir BRass, dont worry, youre hardware is just fine.

Edit: There is no fix for this ATM!?

I think your right, I also get memory errors or CTD when joining or creating a squad (not always, but often). I didn't have any problem until patch 1.20 though. I run Vista 64bit and have a 8800 gtx. I installed the latest forceware driver and it seems fine now.

[Sir_Brass]

Good news: I haven't gotten this crash error in quite a while now.

[Acreo Aeneas]

Hmm. Okay.

Hard to tell sometimes. I've seen a lot of people build their systems without first making sure their RAM is fully compatible with their motherboards.