Hi Chris,
This sounds like the infamous "Blue Screen Of Death" (or BSOD) for short.
You did not mention which version of Windows, but this is what happens in
either Windows 2000 or XP when the OS crashes with an unrecoverable error.
It is sometimes helpful to know the particulars printed on the screen when
it crashes. If there is not enough time to copy this info down because the
computer reboots right away, you can set it to not reboot, thus leaving the
crash screen up for you to copy the info down and repost here so some
experts may be able to advise you.
To make it so the PC doesn't reboot, do the following (under an account that
has administrator privilege)..
1.) Open Control Panel. In XP, this is usually on the Start menu, in Windows
2000 it is in "Start -> Settings".
2.) Click on "Performance and Maintenance" then "System" in XP. Double click
"System" in Windows 2000.
3.) In "System Properties" window that pops up, click on the "Advanced" tab,
then click the "Settings" button (XP) or "System Startup" (Windows 2000) in
"Startup and Recovery".
4.) Uncheck the box "Automatically restart" (XP), "Automatically Reboot"
(Windows 2000).
5.) Reboot.
The next time the system crashes with BSOD, it will remain with the crash
screen up allowing you to copy the information and post it here. In order to
reboot from this, you will need to press the hard reset button (if your PC
has one), or press and hold the power button until it powers off, then press
it again to turn it back on. Once you have this data, you can follow the
steps above to recheck the box to have it restart automatically.
As to why this would happen, it could be caused by a bad or buggy device
driver (have you added any new hardware or updated a device driver
recently?), or some viruses ca cause this. If it is a buggy driver, then the
crash info may point to which one.
Russ Poffenberger
[log in to unmask]
-----Original Message-----
From: PCSOFT - Personal Computer software discussion list
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Christine Wakeham
Sent: Tuesday, October 17, 2006 11:44 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [PCSOFT] Memory Dump
Hello
Can anyone give me some advice please. My computer first started giving
problems when I got a blue screen saying that it was "dumping memory". (or
something similar). I managed to re-boot in safe mode which cleared the
problem, but this has happened again twice since. Linked with this is that
I am daily receiving numerous e-mails returned to me that I have not sent.
It would appear that someone, somewhere is sending out Spam using my e-mail
address. How can I stop this?
I have XP Home and use Outlook Express.
The first time this happened I was using McCaffee security, but have now
changed to f-secure.
Please help!
Chris
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