SYMPTOMS
When you attempt to upgrade your computer to any of the Windows operating systems listed at the beginning of this article, or when you attempt to install a program, Setup may stop responding (hang) when it is 12-percent complete. When this occurs, you may receive an error message similar to the following:
Fatal exception 0e 0028:c004df6c in vxd vcache (01) + 00000b20
Then, your computer may stop responding, in which case you need to restart the computer.
RESOLUTION
To resolve this issue, it may be necessary to replace one or more of the RAM chips in your computer.
Note that you may want to restart Windows in Safe mode and then see whether the error message persists. If it does not, the problem may be a software or driver problem, in which case the information in this article does not apply.
For additional information about how to troubleshoot fatal exception errors, click the article numbers below
to view the articles in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
192926 How to Perform Clean-Boot Troubleshooting for Windows 98
156126 Troubleshooting Windows 95 Using Safe Mode
Use one or both of the following methods to determine whether an installed RAM chip is faulty.
Method 1: Remove Any Extra RAM Chips
If there is more than one RAM (or
memory) chip installed in your computer, you can remove or swap chips to determine which chip is faulty.
Remove any extra memory chips that are installed in the computer, leaving only the minimum amount required for the computer to start and run the Windows operating system. In many cases, this will be either 16 megabytes (MB) or 32 MB, depending on your computer. Restart the computer to see if the error message that you received earlier still persists.
If the error message does not reappear, you have isolated the behavior to a physical memory chip issue. Continue to swap out the memory chips, testing them one at a time, if possible, until you have tested all of chips individually. If the error message returns at a given point, the currently installed memory chip is responsible for the problem. This process may require you to restart your computer several times to pinpoint the specific memory chip that is not working correctly.
Method 2: Use the System Configuration Utility to Restrict RAM Usage
If you cannot use Method 1 because there is only one memory chip installed in your computer, you may be able to use the following method to confirm whether the issue is indeed caused by a faulty memory chip. This method can determine whether the memory chip is faulty, provided the faulty RAM functionality does not reside within the first 12 MB of RAM on the chip.
NOTE: The Windows Me minimum RAM requirement is 32 MB. It is not recommended that you install or upgrade to Windows Me with less than 32 MB of RAM. However, for the purpose of this test, you should be able to restrict RAM usage to 12 MB and still run Windows Me.
NOTE: If your computer does not start properly after you follow the steps in this method, restart the computer, and then hold down the CTRL key while the computer starts. When the
Startup menu is displayed, select
Safe mode to disable the settings that you selected as part of this method.
To restrict RAM usage with the System Configuration utility, follow these steps:
- Click Start, and then click Run.
- Type msconfig, and then click OK.
- In the System Configuration Utility dialog box, click the General tab, and then click Advanced.
- In the Advanced Troubleshooting Settings dialog box, click to select the Limit memory to check box, and then set the limit to 12 MB.
- Click OK twice, and then restart the computer.
If the computer starts correctly after you use this procedure, and you no longer receive the error message, the single RAM chip is probably defective and needs to be replaced.
NOTE: You should expect the computer to run slowly when started in this configuration.