Posted by Sally on March 14, 2000 at 10:30:37:
Did you recently download a new program or game onto your computer? If so, go into the control panel to ‘add/remove programs’ and remove what you downloaded. Some programs when downloaded mess with the systems files for your OS and can cause a ‘blue screen’. If that fails, you may need to back up your files and re-install the OS.
Computer crash? - Posted by Tuan Pham
Posted by Tuan Pham on March 14, 2000 at 09:25:01:
Hi folks,
I hope there’s a lot of computer experts out there. My home computer crashed last night. The blue death box would appear each time I tried to access the internet. Sometimes it would allow me for a few seconds then all of a sudden the “This is an illegal function” screen appears and it would boot me off. Then when I tried to access the internet again that MS blue death screen would appear and it freezes everything. Then I would have to reboot and the whole mess would start all over again. Any suggestions of why this is happening and how can I fix this. Any help would be greatly appreciated so that I don’t have to bring it in and spend a fortune. As always, your help is tax deductible… 
Tuan
simple solution… - Posted by Lhoffman
Posted by Lhoffman on March 15, 2000 at 07:18:49:
remove windows and install Linux… It is the best operating system there is. Best of all Linux is FREE.
I have been windows free for the last year… When I really need to run a windows program. I can launch WINE under Linux to run some windows apps.
If you don’t want to do this… Let me ask you a copuple of questions…
1.) What browser are you using??? i.e Netscape, Explorer, Mozilla, Opera???
2.) Did this problem just start???
3.) Did you install any software application before you started to have this problem???
Let me know… I have some other suggestions that will correct this problem.
-Larry Hoffman
Re: Computer crash? - Posted by ben
Posted by ben on March 14, 2000 at 20:37:47:
Did you happen to get the wording of the error message? What it sounds like is a simple page fault / kernel32 problem. This will be similar in either browser so it does not matter whether you are running IE or Netscape. Whichever browser you are using is trying to wrest control of some precious resources which are being used by other programs.
The first thing you need to do is a fresh boot. Then, touch “Alt-Control-Delete” and write down all the programs that are running at the time. Anything other than “Explorer” and “Systray”. If “Rnaapp” happens to be running at the time, that one is ok, too.
Close all programs other than “Explorer”, “Systray” and “Rnaapp”. Then, connect to the internet and launch your web browser (Internet Explorer or Netscape Navigator/Communicator). Once your browser has launched, Hit “Alt-Control-Delete” again … if you did not see “Rnaapp” before, you may see it now… that is ok. Close that box, by clicking “Cancel” and try to surf the internet.
Now, you have a short list of suspect programs that are causing the crash (the ones you wrote down right after booting).
NEXT STEP - there is another group of programs that are running silently or run at startup, which you may not see in the “Alt-control-delete” box. To find these programs, you need to go into “Regedit”, which is the place where we edit the system’s registry - this is necessary for users of Windows 95, OSR-2. If you have Windows 98, there is a shortcut for this. Either way, we need to edit the “Msconfig” files and stop all ‘auto-start’ / auto-run’ programs from coming on at boot-up. Since going into the registry is kind of touchy, I’d rather not try to explain that process in writing.
While there, it would be a good idea to check the Autoexec.bat, System.ini & win.ini files and run-routines. Again, this can be performed while editing the registry.
This takes about ten-fifteen minutes to do over the phone so if you are serious about fixing this, send me an email and I’ll help you get this taken care of.
The long and short of it is that we need to find the source of the crash and once found, edit your registry to eliminate the problem. We will probably also need to repair the registry, and that is usually pretty routine over the phone.
Explorer? Netscape? or… - Posted by John Behle
Posted by John Behle on March 14, 2000 at 15:30:18:
What internet program are you trying to use? My stats say 82.1% of us use Explorer. I’ll assume that is the case. Explorer can get buggy at times and you may want to upgrade and download the latest version for free.
Problem is how do you do that if you can’t access the internet? You might want to pull a version of Explorer off of your operating system disks or from a friends. Once you do get a version installed and working, go to the windows update site or to www.updates.com and download and install any updates for windows, Explorer and other software that is on your computer.
First, follow the recommendation of un-installing any programs you have loaded shortly before the “blue screen of death” started. If that doesn’t work, re-install Explorer. Then reinstall the operating system.
I would then update and upgrade all system components and software at both sites and also check for viruses. I have a link to both sites at my recommended links section at www.papergame.com
One reason I install Microsoft “updates” is that they throw bug fixes as well as security updates in with “upgrades”. I’ve kept my computer running fairly efficiently using that. I do avoid their new releases and beta versions though. I generally like to let the dust settle and the bugs to be worked out first.
If you are other than Explorer and Windows, of course ignore all this, but let us know what it is you are using so someone can offer specific advice.