Frequent system lockups while using IE6 or Netscape

Have you tried running Windows Update and check disk?
       chkdsk c: /f

im with stevenlewis, run spybot and ditch kazaa, if you want a p2p go with kazaa lite or my personal favorite, winmx, both are spyware free.
here is a link with some troubleshoot tips on ie too
http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_abc.htm
it can be found under I

Since you're using Netscape 4.7, you may want to look into something that gets updated, and in my opinion, is much better than netscape.  Try Mozilla, it is basically identical to Netscape, but it has worked much better for me.

http://www.mozilla.org

For the nightly (latest) release:
ftp://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla/nightly/latest/

Try running this MS hotfix checker. This new version  checks the Hotfix status of Windows NT 4.0, Windows 2000 and Windows XP systems, as well as Internet Information Server (IIS) versions 4.0 and 5.0. Not only that, but the new Hotfix checker will make sure SQL Server 6.0/7.0 and Internet Explorer 5.01 and above are in good shape. Download this 252Kb file from
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=34935A76-0B20-4F91-A0DE-BAAF969CED2B

cheers
Pete

I have found Norton Windoctor to be a great service to me. I had a problem similar to yours once, and when I ran WINDOC,it found over 200 activeX errors. Windoc managed to repair them all, and when I rebooted,the problem was fixed. Another thing I have done in the past is do a repair install. It seems you might be havig a problem with explorer.exe...I did once, and everything on my computer worked just fine EXCEPT anything that required that to run...I had MSN at the time, and that browser worked, and Netscape7 worked, but I couldn't go into IE, nor the control panel, ect. In that case, I did a repair install. You just pop your XP disk in, choose the install option, and the next page will give you the option to upgrade (which is recommended) that is the option you want to choose. It takes about an hour. After you do that, go to Windows update...it will scan your computer for updates, give ou a list of recommended updates to install, and you just go from there.

I tried the spybot program, it found a little spyware remaining. but my computer still locks up in the browsers. It seems like it only happens at certain sites, especially while navigating www.gamestop.com and its associated pages (if that helps anyone). I allow the computer to run its checkdisk each startup after a crash, no help there  either apparently. I tried the "rundll32 setupwbv.dll,IE6Maintenance "C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\Setup\SETUP.EXE" /g "C:\WINDOWS\IE Uninstall Log.Txt" " Command... it gave me a popup box, but none of the options were selectable (they were all shaded in).

I also downloaded the MS hotchecker, but I'm having trouble figuring out exactly how to use it. Thanks for your help so far, keep it coming!

Well, gaming sites in general use up a lot of resources. If you are low RAM or if you have a lot of other programs running at the same time you are visiting your gaming sites, this could be causing the problem.

Usually it's just the browser running when it happens. Also, just today, the computer froze and gave me a screen with this error:
DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL.

It seemed to suggest a hardware issue. The only new piece of hardware since my upgrade is my USRobotics 56k winmodem. But it usually works fine. Could this be part of it?

irq errors are usually 1 of 2 things, 1- a driver issue, if you put a new modem in, make sure the drivers are xp drivers and not 98 or some other ms os, or 2- there are 2 devices sharing the same irq number, this is not uncommon and will not show as a device conflict in device manager. it becomes a problem when they both try to access memory at the same time, open device manager, go to view, list by connection, and see what is on what numbers, you may need to switch pci slots or try to force an irq number assignment.

In the event list, I see a common event that MAY correspond to my lockups:

The IPSEC Services service terminated with the following error:
The authentication service is unknown.

Anyone have any idea what that means? Thanks for the tip jman1980.... does this help?

ALso, i checked the IRQs on my devices... didn't see an overlap.

hum, i looked at what services i am currently running and i have ipsec disabled, you migh try that, also if you go into help and support in your start menu and type in ipsec there are 13 articles that may lead you somewhere, you can also type in authentication service unknown  there are some articles on that too. i would see if disabling the ipsec service works first, right click on my computer, select manage, double click on services, click on services again and scroll down to ipsec, you can always enable it if that does nothing for you.

This question will just cement my newbie status, but I was just thinking...you had 98 before, and then installed XP. Doesn't it take a lot more ram to run XP? And if so, could your computer be locking up because it is low on that, or memory?

windy does make a good point, you didnt list your system specs, if all your other programs are running good and this problem only occures whith ie or netscape, i doubt it is hardware, though one should never rule it out all together. do you think you have your irq problems sorted out? you posted you saw no overlap, have you checked your drivers, have you updated any drivers at all besides the new modem install?

I'll try disabling the IPSEC. I've got 128mb RAM, so I THINK it's enough. We'll see