Seeking Help for a Computer Problem (Vanity)

AC's Cranky Dell | 11/22/03 | Self

[Alberta's Child]

Sorry for the vanity, but I'm looking for help with a computer problem that has come up in the last few days and appears to have gotten progressively worse.

After my computer is turned on and I am using it for five minutes or so, I get the dreaded "This program has performed an illegal operation and will be shut down" window. When I click on the "Details" icon in the error window, one of two problems is identified. The first one says something about "Exlorer has caused an invalid page fault, etc.", while the second one is as follows:

"DW caused an invalid page fault in module KERNEL32.DLL at 018f:bff88396." (I'm posting this one verbatim because it is on the screen right now!)

I lose all of my icons at the bottom of the screen and my background goes blank, but for some reason the application in which I am working still functions (the error window remains on the screen, though). It looks as if I cannot work in anything other than the applications that were open when the system crashed.

If anyone out there has any suggestions about how to deal with this, or if this problem is familiar to anyone out there, I would really appreciate any help you can offer.

I'll do my best to check messages here periodically. But I have to work around this stupid error window. LOL.

Thanks in advance for any advice, recommendations, etc.

[eddie willers]

If you don't see me here on FR until Monday, you'll know I'm having some serious trouble. LOL.

Write down your FR password so we don't have to flame a newbie named Alberta's Second Child.

[Cold Heat]

I think it is format: a/s or something. format c will not work.

I know, because I have done it 500 times with win 95/98.

Win XP is much better, but I have reformatted it as well. (only twice)

I gave up actually keeping data long ago.:-)

[Alberta's Child]

The other message is as follows:

EXPLORER caused an invalid page fault in module MSVCRT.DLL at 018f:78002fc5.

Still plugging away at it -- thanks for everyone's help!

[Fuzz]

Check out this link

http://forums.techguy.org/t110683/scc954ac94f5c26094f9eeebf5bc6a6c8.html

[John Lenin]

What was the last program or piece of hardware you installed ?

[mrsmith]

Run System File Checker (Start/Run/SFC.EXE) to see if it detects any problems.

[Fuzz]

http://www.ati.com/support/infobase/3229.html

[Alberta's Child]

What was the last program or piece of hardware you installed?

Good question. I'm not sure about that, though I've retrieved files via e-mail from work. I haven't added anything new in a while, I think.

I may have downloaded a Yahoo game a few days ago, now that I think about it.

[PeteFromMontana]

Sounds serious. I would recommend one giant can of Whoop A$$ and call a computer salesperson in the morning.

Then again, I am a complete smart A$$ and it is highly recommended you ignore anything I say.

[Smogger]

You didn't describe you computer configuration. Operating system, hardware etc. Any programs you have running and if you have a virus checker or not.

[John Lenin]

Right click my computer, click properties, click hardware, click device manager and see if you have any yellow exclamation points anywhere, if you do one click on the harware in device manger and than righ click and click uninstall and than restart the pc. This is a trick I have used in the past, uninstall your hardware a few pieces at a time and restart the pc and let it reinstall the hardware. If could be a hardware conflict.

[Aliska]

Yes, but the person will no doubt want to try to save some data before scrubbing the whole drive. Blindly following some advice can cause you to lose everything. From the sound of it, the person can still access their data and needs to take immediate measures to back it up before going on, if they haven't already done backup.

If I had lots of data that wasn't backed up and too much to back up on cd's, I'd take it into the shop if I couldn't fix it myself. That's what I had to do with blaster, and the tech saved tons of pictures and data for me.

Two hard drives (and backup) is a good idea.

[I_saw_the_light]

Go here, Download this program and run a scan. If you have any spyware causing the problem, chances are this will take care of it.
http://www.safer-networking.org/index.php?lang=en&page=download
A bit off the subject-I looked at your home page, what a beautiful place Alberta is-I stole wall paper.

[Alberta's Child]

It looks like I have another problem. When I try to download an executable file, it automatically tries to open in QuickTime media player. How can I fix that?

[John Lenin]

When explorer is messed up you might as well start over because you cannot uninstall and reinstall it to have it correct itself. Starting over is a pain in the butt but sometimes its the only way to get rid of a virus or a bad configuration. I always feel safer to start over from scratch. Nothing makes me madder than to be workinng on a file for a half hour and than you go to save it and explorer crashes on the save, it's the one program that the operating system and every program is dependant on.

[Alberta's Child]

No yellow exclamation points anywhere.

[John Lenin]

Can you run scandisk and defrag on the c drive ?

[Aliska]

I know you are probably correct, but starting over is a real pain if you don't absolutely have to. I'd take it to a professional first and at least have them look at it and get an estimate.

[Alberta's Child]

How do I do that?

[tapatio]

My computer is doing the same thing?Why does it try to open with a media player?Also when I go to My Computer the icon beside the c drive is a Wild Tangent icon.What's up with that?