Numerous page faults - all @ same address

RASelkirk · 2nd January 2003

Hi All,

I'm new here, looking for a good explanation of the old "invalid page fault" error message. I'm having lots of them at roughly the same address:

VB6 caused an invalid page fault in
module MSO97RT.DLL at 016f:3083bba6.

ACMSETUP caused an invalid page fault in
module KERNEL32.DLL at 016f:bff7b9f6.

AUTOCHK caused an invalid page fault in
module ASSETS.DLL at 016f:0148ae87.

EXPLORER caused an invalid page fault in
module KERNEL32.DLL at 016f:bff9db61.

I'm seeing the 016f: as a partial memory address, could I have a bad memory stick? I'm running a single 512 meg stick of DDR PC2700 memory. Is there some way to test the mem stick or do you think it's an unrelated problem?

TIA!

Russ Selkirk

**TonyT** · 2nd January 2003

My best guess is that you have some Spyware on your system that has corrupted certain DLL files.

IPF's are not nevcessarily caused by or a result of the program that is listed in the error message, rather an IPF is just a report from Windows as to what has occurred.

Likely there is some other app that is running that is causing the troubles and this app is preventing proper execution of the named DLL's.

RASelkirk · 5th January 2003

Well, I've since gotten a dozen more page faults - all at the same beginning address < 016f: > and all in different modules. Doesn't someone here have a good, not-to-technical explanation of what, exactly, a "page fault" is?

Failing that, how about a link to a decent (freeware) memory tester?

Oops! Forgot to mention - no VIRI on this box; I run Innoculan AV every night, Kleztool once a week, and Ad-aware at least weekly...

Thanks!

Russ

**markp62** · 5th January 2003

Stop running the klez tool!!! I believe doing this has caused you to have a case of versionitis.
Go to Start\Run, type in SFC and hit enter. Let the System File Checker scan for corrupted files.
http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/K/kernel32_dll.html
http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/I/invalid_page_fault.html
http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/p/page_fault.html

Welshjim · 5th January 2003

RASelkirk--Some explanations here
http://support.microsoft.com/default...rmsg/kbipf.asp

WhitPhil · 6th January 2003

AdAware is badly out of date.

Download and run SpyBot to check.

http://spybot.eon.net.au/

The address that you are seeing is a virtual memory address, not a physical address, so bad ram is not a culprit here.

If Spybot finds nothing, or removing the items it finds does not help, download Startuplist and post back the contents of the file that it creates.

**TonyT** · 6th January 2003

paging

<operating system> A technique for increasing the memory space
available by moving infrequently-used parts of a program's
working memory from RAM to a secondary storage medium,
usually disk. The unit of transfer is called a page.

A memory management unit (MMU) monitors accesses to memory
and splits each address into a page number (the most
significant bits) and an offset within that page (the lower
bits). It then looks up the page number in its page table.
The page may be marked as paged in or paged out. If it is
paged in then the memory access can proceed after translating
the virtual address to a physical address. If the
requested page is paged out then space must be made for it by
paging out some other page, i.e. copying it to disk. The
requested page is then located on the area of the disk
allocated for "swap space" and is read back into RAM. The
page table is updated to indicate that the page is paged in
and its physical address recorded.

The MMU also records whether a page has been modified since it
was last paged in. If it has not been modified then there is
no need to copy it back to disk and the space can be reused
immediately.

Paging allows the total memory requirements of all running
tasks (possibly just one) to exceed the amount of physical
memory, whereas swapping simply allows multiple processes
to run concurrently, so long as each process on its own fits
within physical memory