In a message dated 11/2/01 2:09:05 PM Pacific Standard Time, 
radhaz@redshift.com writes:




> For your Windows problems, you could try downloading this trialware:
> http://nct.digitalriver.com/fulfill/0001.2
> or just buy:
> http://www.directdeals.com/category.asp?category=Software&
> 






Thanks for the links. I wish I could DL them to check them out but I cannot 
sign on to the net these days. The computer is being a major PITA these days.




> 






Here's a synopsis of my situation. I'll try to include any relevant details 
in the hope there is a clue in here that can possibly point a more 
technically adept person to the root cause of my problems with this computer. 

We bought this comp used from a person who did professional CG work and it 
ran perfectly. My brother came into town in August for a visit and while he 
was here, he reorganized the programs in the start menu, reconfigured the 
desktop into three separate fields, removed the high-end graphics card, etc. 
Soon after we were getting error messages saying something along the lines of 
there being xxx bytes of information in unassociated file chains. He said 
this was not a problem and just to click "ignore" when it popped up. We did 
so but the xxx number kept increasing. 

After a while of this, we started many "illegal operation" errors that booted 
us back to the desktop. Again, he said to ignore them and since it wasn't my 
computer, I had no say about taking care of the growing problem and had to 
deal w/ the interruptions. 

Around the first week of Oct, a new error message appeared. Now it said "A 
exception OE has occurred at 0028:xxxxxxxx in VxD---" with numerous variants 
within this message. These appeared within 5 mins of turning on the computer 
and effectively crashed it to the point I couldn't do anything at all.

At this point we brought it to a repair shop. After keeping it for a week, 
they said it was fixed. We brought it home, turned it on, and the OE messages 
popped right up along with a few others that were equally fun. 

I had thought that the main problem was a corrupted registry/win98 and 
attempted to reinstall this from the original disk. The instillation failed 
but for some reason it changed things so that now, while we still get the 
"OE" errors and other messages which occasionally crash the system, we can 
generally keep the computer on and go to AOL for extended periods. However, 
now we no longer can access the net at all. I don't think that AOL is the 
cause because I installed a clean copy and still had all the same problems.

The problems I'm dealing with now are (in order of concern) 1) Those various 
error messages 2) No internet access 3) No buddy list, IM's or associated 
options available 4) When dialing AOL, it takes 3-5 attempts to connect 
properly (before it worked on the first attempt).

I realize this is a lengthy post of my computer woes. If this was just one or 
two separate problems or if the error messages were at least consistent, I 
think I may have been able to deal with it. However, by this point, it's just 
over my head. If anything needs further clarification or if any of the 
details I've included are a big red flag to the main problem and possible 
repair, please let me know. I'm at my wits end with this thing! 

Thanks,

Vic