Whats with all the BSODs?? PLEASE help!!!

[Infra]

hey guys.. a friend of mine got a new system and he's been having all sorts of problems..Blue screens, errors with progs like this one:
-----

IEXPLORE caused an exception c0059aefH in module MSHTML.DLL at 0167:7ab4a06d.
Registers:
EAX=0044ab2c CS=0167 EIP=7ab4a06d EFLGS=00010246
EBX=01dbc6a0 SS=016f ESP=0058d7b0 EBP=0058d7cc
ECX=00000200 DS=016f ESI=00000001 FS=1a67
EDX=01dbc6a0 ES=016f EDI=0058d8c4 GS=0000
Bytes at CS:EIP:
db 45 f8 ff 75 10 8b 33 53 ff b0 d8 02 00 00 51
Stack dump:
00000000 01dbc6a0 0044ab2c 0058d8c4 00000003 00000118 01dbc590 0058d838 7ab49530 01dbc6a0 0044ab2c 00000000 00000000 01dbc6a0 0044ab2c 0044ae04
----

His system specs follow:

Intel PIII 866 Mhz
Motherboard with Via Chipset (Via 694X ATX)
128 MB Micron Spectek PC133 SDRAM
Western Digital 30 GB HD
SBLive Platinum 5.1
nVidia Vanta
some winmodem with rockwell chipset
win98 se

I tried installing the via 4 in 1 drivers..just the same
I got the ram stick changed to 2 64MB Infinion PC133 ramstix..same


Can anyone help? the errors and blue screens occur randomly, sometimes with games, sometimes with iexplore.exe, sometimes with netscape..
I think it has to do something with the memory..any bios settings to set?
please help! thanks alot in advance.

 

[Infra]

By the way, the CPU idles at 50'C, and gets to 52'C under load..Too much?

 

[NoreagaCNN]

For a PIII thats pretty damn hot, BTW I think he might wanna format.

-Nore

 

[Infra]

Its a coppermine.. using stock intel fan/heatsink combo.

If anyone's got any other suggestions, please do tell.

Otherwise, formatting is the only way to go.

 

[Quickfingerz]

try to format and re-install using a good copy of Windows 98. I had a similar problem but it was due to a bad Windows 98 copy so when i used the original, everything worked perfectly.

 

[Infra]

ok but what about the cpu temp? is 50-52 too much? the voltage is being auto-set by the bios.. maybe it's choosing the wrong voltage? whats an appropriate voltage for a P3 coppermine 866 Mhz 133 FSB?

 

[NeonFlak]

I would go with a format and reinstall. I would also check to make sure the heatsink is sitting properly on the cpu. Also, make sure you aren't overclocking the cpu at all.

 

[NoreagaCNN]

It might also be a heat problem, he should get a better HSF. The stock cooling pretty much sucks.

-Nore

 

[Infra]

here are the voltages taken from the Via hardware monitor:

VCore: 1.76
2.5V: 2.47
3.3V: 3.57
5V: 5.10
12V: 12.43

Current CPU Temp: 51'C

btw the psu is a 250 watt one.

 

[Infra]

allrighty then.Seems like I've got no choice but to format his computer and install everything all over again.

Thanks for your help.