strangest problem ever... I swear!

[NoChance]

I'm having the strangest error ...

when I run dxdiag.exe, upon exit i always get the error:

The instruction at 0x01145107b" referenced memory at "0x031e2f58". The memory could not be "read".

(sometimes the 0x01145107b is different, but the 0x031e2f58 always seems to be the same).

now if I make a copy of dxdiag.exe (and still call it "dxdiag.exe") from c:\windows\system32 to the desktop and run from the desktop I still get this error.

however, if I copy dxdiag.exe to anywhere on my computer (including c:\windows\system32) but with a different filename -- say mmm.exe -- then running mmm.exe gives no errors upon exit!!!!

anyone have any idea what's going on?
anyone know what the error means in the first place?

my specs:

WinXP Pro
AMD 64 3500+ cpu
MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum mobo
1 Gig RAM
Geforce 6800 GT gfx card


thanks in advance for any help!!

 

[BadThad]

Strange as heck. Are you having a problem with DX? I keep a copy of the full DX download (like 32MB) on my hard drive so I can reinstall it instantly.

 

[wpshooter]

Maybe something messed up in your file system. Run scandisk and then do defragmentation.

Edit: Might also want to get hard drive diagnostic from manufacturer and run.

 

[NoChance]

about reinstalling directX... if you just run the installation package, it doesn't reinstall --
without copying any files, it just tells you that directX is ready to use...

you can download programs to rollback your directX to the version from your windows CD -- i've tried that (rolled back to directX 8 from 9.0c), but the problem remains!

as for a disk defrag, i've tried that already -- no luck..

could it really be a hard drive issue?

 

[NoChance]

oh, and i tried the scandisk/defrag (all the scandisk tests) --

i believe it found that some disk space was listed as allocated when it was actually free (not sure exactly what it said since it exited the screen as soon as the test was over)

but anyway, the dxdiag issue is still there.