.VxD errors.... HELP PLEASE!

[acid16]

Ok i've been having major computer problems over the past 6 months. I bought my computer in September, 2001. The specs are listed in my signature. Around January I started getting big problems, for unknown reasons. Basically, the errors range... sometimes I get blue screen when I start my computer up, but most of the time I never make it to the desktop and ill get errors saying "Windows Protection Error. Please restart your computer."....... lately i've been getting


While accessing device: Shell

Invalid VxD dynamic link call to device number 1, service 7


What usually happens is, while on my computer ill get a blue screen, then my comp will not beable to recover and ill ave to shut down, then when I try and boot up ill get a series of different errors (from what I can tell, they are totally random). Usually it will end by a blue scan disk thing coming up and telling me it's replaced my registry, then my comp will shut down and I wont beable to boot it back up for about 5 minutes... then when I boot it up, its fine again for like, 30 minutes. I've reinstalled fdisk'ed/formatted/reinstalledwindows about 8 times now... im completely puzzled. It's not the operating system either cause I installed it on my step-father's new computer in March and it's running perfect for him. I really have no idea what it is. I searched google and found many links relating to the problem, but nearly all of them say that it's regarding scanner software... I don't own a scanner and i've never installed scanner software on this hard drive... so I dunno. Some said it might be my ram... If anyone has any suggestions for me you have no idea how grateful i'd be... at this point in time i'm thinking of just buying a nerw computer and selling this one for parts... (and burning the evil hard drive!). I'm willing to try pretty much anything though, so if anyone has any suggestions to fix this, please post them... i'm willing to pay a small amount of money also, if anyone can help.

Thanks,
Adam

 

[killumanati]

I have had erroros like this in the past. The one that is of most interest is the Windows Protection Error, getting this on boot up ususally means you have some kind of serious harware error. The times I got this was when I was overclocking my CPU. When you overclock you stress the CPU im key areas; Temperature and Voltage. So if you are overclocking put it back to normal, if you are not overclocking make sure you have the voltage set to the correct settings. If these dont work I would take my heat/sink fan off my CPU and make sure you have the CPU you think you have. Then i would make sure my bios is setup to automatically detect the chip/voltage/speed.

 

[DaiShan]

Windows protection erros on boot, I have had those, what a windows protection error actually is, is when a 32 bit device driver cannot be loaded, now normally in 98 they ASP (automatic skip driver) would skip it, but th circumstances surrounding it prevent that from happening, I would just do a fresh install of the os, preferable put something like 2k or xp on there.

edit re-read your post, I'll do a little research and come back in the morning

 

[killumanati]

He has already done a re-install of the OS so that can't be the problem, the problem here lies in some peice of hardware corrupting data. Probably the CPU....

 

[DaiShan]

Originally posted by: killumanati
He has already done a re-install of the OS so that can't be the problem, the problem here lies in some peice of hardware corrupting data. Probably the CPU....

If anything I would suspect the HDD, then the RAM, I'm not thinking straight right now, so I will come back in the morning with more ideas. In the mean time, when was the last time you ran a thorough scandisk, and defragged?

 

[oLLie]

Try getting into the bios and go for the PC Health option or whatever in your bios tells you the temperature. If it's really high, turn off the computer right away and try to get a better heatsink/fan, if that's not an option right away try taking off a side of the case. My friend's computer had .vxd errors and random crashes in Windows, after taking off the side of his case his temp dropped from 197 to 122 degrees Fahrenheit. Good luck

 

[acid16]

Thanks for all the replies. Ok, I have a confession to make... I messed around with the bios a while ago... I think that's what it could be. Another confession, I really don't know much about the bios... so I shouldn't have been messing around with it. The reason i've counted that out as an option though, is cause I didn't edit my bios until my computer started giving me these VxD errors. Anyways, my CPU tempeature is extremely high most of the time. Usually it's around 52C to 54C..... the other day I checked and it was as high as 61C. My heatsink isn't the best though. As far as my bios goes... I dunno. I tried to set everything back to the way it was before. What should my ram timings be at? I don't want to overclock... my heatsink isn't good enough for that. My CPU is set at 133fbs, so I think that's normal. Next time my computer goes down, ill check the bios and see what the ram timings are... im positive they are like..... 2.5 / 6 / 3. This problem has gotten worse over the past week, that's why i decided to post here... cause I just cant handle it anymore.

Thanks for the help all..... plz dont stop now 🙂

Adam

 

[acid16]

Originally posted by: DaiShan

Originally posted by: killumanati
He has already done a re-install of the OS so that can't be the problem, the problem here lies in some peice of hardware corrupting data. Probably the CPU....

If anything I would suspect the HDD, then the RAM, I'm not thinking straight right now, so I will come back in the morning with more ideas. In the mean time, when was the last time you ran a thorough scandisk, and defragged?

ok, another confession... i've never done a through scan disk or a defrag. Should I do one? I guess i'm a total newbie... but, I was just under the impression that FDISK + Format = new hard drive (IE: one that didn't need to be defragged).

I'll defrag tonight before I sleep, but i'm almost positve i'll wake up and see a blue screen of death 🙁........ can you defrag / scandisk in SAFE MODE?????

Adam

 

[killumanati]

In your bios you should have a fail safe setting. When you set it to 'fail safe' that is like the slowest bios settings you can take but they are the most compatible. After setting it to fail safe that should eliminate a wrong bios setting.

 

[DaiShan]

Originally posted by: acid16

Originally posted by: DaiShan

Originally posted by: killumanati
He has already done a re-install of the OS so that can't be the problem, the problem here lies in some peice of hardware corrupting data. Probably the CPU....

If anything I would suspect the HDD, then the RAM, I'm not thinking straight right now, so I will come back in the morning with more ideas. In the mean time, when was the last time you ran a thorough scandisk, and defragged?

ok, another confession... i've never done a through scan disk or a defrag. Should I do one? I guess i'm a total newbie... but, I was just under the impression that FDISK + Format = new hard drive (IE: one that didn't need to be defragged).

I'll defrag tonight before I sleep, but i'm almost positve i'll wake up and see a blue screen of death 🙁........ can you defrag / scandisk in SAFE MODE?????

Adam

Yes, as a matter of fact you should ONLY run them in safe mode, otherwise hard drive access continually restarts the application. If you fdisked and formatted that will leave you with a clean partition, the defrag isn't really needed, but scandisk checks the disk for physical defects, such as bad sectors and marks them not to be read to, if you are getting bad sectors, this causes data corruption, and is a good indicator that the hdd is on its way out, I would run the scandisk, (thorough scandisk not just surface) then I would run memtest86 (downloadable off the internet, it runs in its own operating environment before windows loads, run it for a few hours on loop see if you get any errors, bad RAM can cause data corruption also) After that, I would boot with step by step confirmation, since you have ruled out the hdd and the RAM, this allows you to load each device driver until you get a problem, when you get a problem, boot into safemode and un-install the driver, then reinstall, making sure that you are using the latest version from the manufacturer for the device. Let us know how that turns out, if that doesn't turn anything up, I have a few more ideas. (oh just one quick question, has this always happend, or has the computer been stable in the past? Have you tried clearing the cmos? Also have you tried flashing the BIOS?)

 

[acid16]

Thanks for all the help everyone... I ran scan disk and it found a few errors, I also did the defrag. Thought it was running fine aagin, but nope. Then I tried the memory download thing, noticed no errors or corruption. So then I went to my bios and hit "Load Optimal Settings". BINGO! My comp is working great now..... only problem is, i'm running at 1050mhz. I tried switching the FSB to 133 and it got the same problems, so that's my problem! I've noticed my computer is running 6-7C cooler, so i guess it was cause of heat. This weekend i'm gonna pick up a new heatsink and some fans and put them in and hopefully it will help. My current heatsink sucks, it isn't even a heatsink, it's a fuckin, plastic fan...... lol. Oh well. Thanks for the help guys!!!!!!!!

Adam