Something very wrong!?!?

From: Les (les@chatroomcoffeehouse.com)
Date: 03/07/03 

From: "Les" <les@chatroomcoffeehouse.com>
Date: Fri, 7 Mar 2003 10:28:20 -0800

I am not sure about the first part of your problem.
Could have been malicous or just coincidence. I have
seen the second part, the blue screen with that message
happen before. Turned out to be a malfunctioning Ram
chip. My guess is something got frazzeled.

Try running diagnostics on your hard drive and your
memory. Best place to start. Unfortunately I don't have
a recommendation of software to do this. I know that
Dell machines have built-in testing you can run. You
might have something like that built-in or that you can
download. Or try the old fashion way, swap out the ram,
then swap out the drive. See if it works.

Good Luck,

Les
>-----Original Message-----
>I was enjoying a league race the other night in n2k3 and
>when the race finished I was thrown to my desktop where
>an unusual looking IE text window informed me that I was
>broadcasting my IP address and if I would just click on
>the 'okay' button I would be able to get help. Well I
>clicked on the 'X' icon in the upper right to close the
>window, not knowing where the message came from or would
>take me, and to my surprise the system rebooted?
>Strange? I immediately went to change my XP Network
>Firewall settings, I think I had let them down for some
>reason earlier in the week, and I could not even see the
>Network settings. Went to Control Panel, clicked
>on "Network Connections" and got a blank networking
>screen. "Network Setup Wizard' does not run either. I
>have tried doing everything I can think of and it always
>comes out the same, nothing happens when you click on
>it. Even tried to reload the Add new Network options
>from the XP CD but it wouldn't load either. It seems
the
>network editing functions are not available, but the
>Internet is there as is my local area network. I can
get
>on the internet and into other machines on the network.
>I just can't get into or change any network settings.
>
>Well I thought maybe I had a virus? Ran 'Housecall',
>everything was okay! Loaded Norton AV 2003, applied all
>updates, and it said everything was okay! Thought, well
>maybe it needs an XP update. Went to MS Windows Update
>and tried to run it. Looks like it was trying to
>download a couple of critical updates but just stops
when
>the downloading measurement window comes up. System is
>still running fine but the download never starts or
>installs. Done this 20 or 30 times. My system seems to
>run okay on everything else I have tried but?? Well I
>figured now is the time for 'System Restore' so I ran
>it. Seemed to run okay but didn't fix the problem.
>
>Gone into 'Safe' mode and checked out all of my devices,
>everything looks fine. Did find a Linksys NIC card
>installed? Have never had a Linksys NIC in this
machine,
>runs an onboard Realtek. Removed the Linksys device.
>Can't find anything unusual looking in 'dxdiag'
>or 'msconfig'.
>
>Okay, so I tried to reformat and reload! Booted from
the
>XP-Pro disk and tried a complete fresh reformat and
>install. After running for a few minutes transferring
>files etc, it kicks me to a blue error screen and tells
>me I have a hardware related problem and can't continue
>when it gets to the part where it would ask about
>reformatting. Refers to new hardware that was
>installed? The only new hardware is the AMD Athlon-XP
>2800+ chip installed several days ago. Ran the
>compatibility test and it came out clean. Tried booting
>with a Win ME and a Win 98 boot disk but it won't let me
>delete the primary DOS partition, some sort of
>compatibility issue with NTFS. Guess I could trash the
>Hard Drive, but that sounds kinda dumb and expensive.
>
>Have changed video cards, memory and power supplies with
>no changes in the behavior. I have also played with all
>of the BIOS settings on the MB and deleted and reloaded
>most all drivers for my other hardware without success.
>Temperatures do not appear to be a problem. I'm
thinking
>someone has hacked my registry? Or is this something
>someone out there can help me with?
>
>System Specs: MB Gigabyte KT/400 GA-7VAXP; AMD Athlon-
XP
>2800+ Barton Core; ATI 9700-PRO (3.0, 3.1 cat's and
>latest OmegaCorner drivers) tried Ti4600 also; 1 stick
>512MB DDR400 tried DDR333 also; WD 7200rpm 80 Gig HD;
>Creative Audigy 2 Platinum; Creative 6.1 speakers;
>onboard Realtek NIC; Antec True Power 480w Power supply
>tried 2 of them; US Robotics modem; Via 4.45; All of the
>latest software, Windows updates except last two
Critical
>ones, video and BIOS updates. Creative CD-RW CD and
>Creative CD-DVD Player; 4 case fans and replaced the
chip
>fan on the video card with a TL Orb. Network connection
>is via AT&T Cable 1.5Gig/384K, 5pk IP Address option
>through a Linksys Cable/DSL Router.
>
>.
>