System crashing/freezing constantly

You don't say what program??? It may be a program that is starting automatically at startup that you can stop from laoding. You go to the start menu, to accessories,then system tools,system information.Cick on Tools,
then system configuration utility. There is a tab startup, you can uncheck these programs to stop them from loading at startup. Don't uncheck system tray. loadpower profile should only be checked once,If you have checked something wrong you can go back and check it again.

Sorry about that,

the program is Internet Explorer.

Do you think it might be Zone Alarm that is causing the problem?

"This program has performed an illegal operation and will be shut down"

the details of this message are:
there were a lot of hexadecimal numbers..I think, but here is the gist of the message.

DWIS caused an invalid page fault in module <unknown> at 0000:bfe014dl

Registers:

EAX=0062fbec CS=0177 KIP=bfe014dl EFLGS=00010246
EBX=
ECX=
EDX=

Bytes at CS:EIP:

Stack dump:
70bf2f3d 80000002

Again, there were a lot of what I think were hexadecimal numbers that I didn't copy down, but if need be I can copy them down.

Also, sometimes, but not often my pc just reboots itself...YES itself.

I have heard that it could be an overheating problem.  I have used compressed air to clean out the insides and I have just installed a new power supply.  One of the capitors in the power supply went "POP" very loudly when I went to turn it on the other day.

Thanks again,
Dwight

First turn off Zone Alarm and see if that fixes it. If not, go to http://www.lavasoft.de/ and download and run Ad-Aware. It is free, and will clean up spyware/adware that can be junking up your system. Delete whatever it finds, but you have the option to back it up first if you want to. Reboot, and test again.
If it still happens, uninstall and reinstall both Zone Alarm and IE. For IE, go to the Windows Update site, choose a custom install of IE, and download everything to your hard drive rather than doing the online install. Then uninstall IE and reinstall from your locally saved files.
When you did the virus scan, was your data file current? If not, get the latest version and do it again. You can also go to many different antivirus sites and do an online scan with different virus detectors.

Thanks tanjnt,

I have a few things that I have to try...and I will let you know.

It was actually about two years ago and my brother and I were both working on the problem...so to make a long story short...I don't recall if we actually reformatted the hard drive.  But I don't think we did.  

Currently I would like to avoid that route...until I try cleaning out the fans, running the Ad-Aware and all that stuff.  

Thanks again,
Dwight.

This thing has been crashing for two years? If you can think of any pattern as to when it crashes, it might help. For instance, is it as soon as you start IE, or when you visit certain sites on the web, when you download, etc? Do you connect first, then load IE, or do you load IE and let it dial? What version of IE is it, and have you visited the Windows Update site and done the suggested updates and patches?

almost forgot, that my internect is via cable modem, so my pc is always connected to the web...and I totally forgot, but I tried running a game demo and it crashed the pc as well.

No pattern really, as the time frame can sometimes be after 5 minutes and sometimes after an hour.

it could be hardware problems, such as overheating or failing components. When your power supply died, it could have damaged other components on the way out. At least open up the case and reseat each of the cards.

Also do a start > run > msinfo32.exe. Under Tools, run the registry checker, then run the system file checker. Replace any files it identifies that might be corrupt.

Next go to Windows Update web site, and install all critical updates or driver updates.

Other than that, look for patterns as to when it happens, and give us exact wording of any error messages that appear.

Okay,

I just had another error:

"A fatal exception 0E has occurred at 0028:C0005257 in VXD VMM(01) + 00004257.  The current application will be terminated.

*Press any key to terminate the current application
*Press CTRL+ALT+DEL again to restart your computer.  You will lose any unsaved info."

I was running Ad-aware to remove spy ware and other junk at the time the pc crashed.

Dwight.

Turn off your System - Take off the cover - Remove your memory chips and Clean the contacts.

Get a Memory checker that boots from a floppy - $'s to Donuts you have a bad Simm or Dimm

Anytime your system randomly freezes or reboots itself - First thing to check is the memory

Thanks DTHConsulting,

I am in the process of cleaning the memory and running some memory check programs.

I will let you know.

Dwight

The VMM is a memory error. It could be hardware, could be software. A good general cleanup of the system should be helpful if you don't find a defective memory chip.

Alright,

I just had the same error as before:

Internet Explorer:

"This program has performed an illegal operation and will be shut down"

and again,

Launchpad:

"This program has performed an illegal operation and will be shut down"

I ran some diagnostic software to check the memory via a bootdisk.  Now the pc just will not boot up without the, "This program has performed an illegal operation and will be shut down" error.

I took out and replaced the RAM, but it didn't do a thing.

As tanjnt mentioned I may have to do another major cleanup.  

I am using a secondary computer.  

Thanks Dwight.

When I have more than a couple of crashes I just run setup
and it straitens it out you don't loose anything and it replaces the files that can malfunction due to crashing.It wou8ldn't hurt to try it.

Sorry I didn't see that you tried this. I don't  use ie because of the ads I use mozilla their are no ads and it's free from mozilla.org. You can go to microsft knowleadge
base and put the error message in the search and read the fixes. You can also try putting a message in google and see if
you can find an answer. Like I say once a program crashes a few times it gets worse and then it starts freezing so you just run setup again.

Thanks vig12,

I will give it a try.

Dwight

Since you have diagnostics you can run from a boot disk, do a thorough set of diagnostics. Reseat your IDE cables and all the peripheral cards. If it passes the hardware diags, do a thorough system cleanup.

for IE crashing this sounds like you just need to forget about win98. it was the best version of windows until xp came out. go for professional. besides that, i found that a lot of time random freezing and rebooting is due to hardware. if it's not the memory, then it could be the video card, sound card, anything. when i installed xp on my pc almost 2 years ago it was doing that constantly, i swapped out the video card and i've had uptimes of up to a month (for windows, this is an accomplishment on a daily use & abuse pc)

another thing you can try is changing the hardware acceleration, another thing that can save you a lot of headaches.

Thanks everyone,

I am still trying a few things...but like I am starting to hear, an ongoing theme seems to be hardware.  To rule out any of the possiblities I have switched the memory, it has a new power supply and video card.  So I am thinking that it might be the motherboard.  

Dwight

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Thanks for the points.