M
Mike R.
Guest
One of my college daughter's laptops is having problems. It's an
Inspiron 8600 running XPHome SP2. The best way to describe the problem
is to copy the letter she sent to me this afternoon. I've googled, etc,
and my hunch is that it may not be malware, but a driver problem. Here's
what she wrote:
*******************************************
...I have been unable to use my laptop since Sunday night when I got back
to school. I opened it up like usual that night and a blue screen
appeared with a bunch of text on it. I'm sure you've seen it before. I
told mom that I would try System Restore hoping that I could at least get
it working good enough to use it, however I have not been successful. I
tried restoring it 3 times, and finally I went back to the earliest date
I could (in July), and when it reboots, it continues to go back to the
blue screen. I can get in Safe Mode, but that's about it. I'm looking
at the blue screen right now and here is what it says:
"A problem has been detected and windows has been shut down to prevent
damage to your computer.
IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL
If this is the first time you've seen this stop error screen, restart
your computer. If this screen appears again, follow these steps:
Check to make sure any new hardware or software is properly installed.
If this is a new installation, ask your hardware or software manufacturer
for any windows updates you might need.
If problems continue, disable or remove any newly installed hardware or
software. Disable BIOS memory options such as caching or shadowing. If
you need to use Safe Mode to remove or disable components, restart your
computer, press F8 to select Advanced Startup options, and then select
Safe Mode.
Techinal information:
***STOP: 0X0000000A (0xFF1701F0, 0x00000002, 0x00000000, 0x804D9B64)
Beginning dump of physical memory
Physical memory dump complete.
Contact your system administrator or techinal support group for further
assistance."
I have no idea as to what any of this means, but I haven't installed
any new software recently so that couldn't be the problem. The last
thing I can remember doing with the laptop was downloading some songs
through Limewire this past Friday before coming home for the weekend. I
remember seeing a note from McAfee saying that I was trying to download a
corrupt file and then it said it had found a trojan and cleaned it. But
I've seen this before and it has never screwed up my computer. When we
got home, I actually never took it out of the car to use it. It stayed
in the car the whole weekend. Last thing I remember doing was using
Limewire and then burning my cd. I believe I left the computer on
though, and so it must have stayed powered on but shut the whole time in
the car over the weekend. So when I got it back here Sunday night, I
opened it up and it was still on, but showed the blue screen. However, I
don't remember ever seeing the blue screen on Friday before I closed it,
unless it showed up later while it was shut.
I just thought I'd tell you what I last did before this happened. I hope
it's not a virus. It's just really random because I hardly even ever use
my laptop and it had been working fine up until now so I don't know
what's going on.
****************************************
I've googled and looked at the Microsoft site, and my hunch is that this
is a corrupt driver, and not malware. I may have to take a trip to see
the machine in person, but if I can guide her over the phone, that is
much preferred.
I want to avoid a clean install.
Can anyone point me a direction to start?
(Yes, I wish they wouldn't use P2P programs like Limewire, whether this
caused this or not.)
Thank you.
Inspiron 8600 running XPHome SP2. The best way to describe the problem
is to copy the letter she sent to me this afternoon. I've googled, etc,
and my hunch is that it may not be malware, but a driver problem. Here's
what she wrote:
*******************************************
...I have been unable to use my laptop since Sunday night when I got back
to school. I opened it up like usual that night and a blue screen
appeared with a bunch of text on it. I'm sure you've seen it before. I
told mom that I would try System Restore hoping that I could at least get
it working good enough to use it, however I have not been successful. I
tried restoring it 3 times, and finally I went back to the earliest date
I could (in July), and when it reboots, it continues to go back to the
blue screen. I can get in Safe Mode, but that's about it. I'm looking
at the blue screen right now and here is what it says:
"A problem has been detected and windows has been shut down to prevent
damage to your computer.
IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL
If this is the first time you've seen this stop error screen, restart
your computer. If this screen appears again, follow these steps:
Check to make sure any new hardware or software is properly installed.
If this is a new installation, ask your hardware or software manufacturer
for any windows updates you might need.
If problems continue, disable or remove any newly installed hardware or
software. Disable BIOS memory options such as caching or shadowing. If
you need to use Safe Mode to remove or disable components, restart your
computer, press F8 to select Advanced Startup options, and then select
Safe Mode.
Techinal information:
***STOP: 0X0000000A (0xFF1701F0, 0x00000002, 0x00000000, 0x804D9B64)
Beginning dump of physical memory
Physical memory dump complete.
Contact your system administrator or techinal support group for further
assistance."
I have no idea as to what any of this means, but I haven't installed
any new software recently so that couldn't be the problem. The last
thing I can remember doing with the laptop was downloading some songs
through Limewire this past Friday before coming home for the weekend. I
remember seeing a note from McAfee saying that I was trying to download a
corrupt file and then it said it had found a trojan and cleaned it. But
I've seen this before and it has never screwed up my computer. When we
got home, I actually never took it out of the car to use it. It stayed
in the car the whole weekend. Last thing I remember doing was using
Limewire and then burning my cd. I believe I left the computer on
though, and so it must have stayed powered on but shut the whole time in
the car over the weekend. So when I got it back here Sunday night, I
opened it up and it was still on, but showed the blue screen. However, I
don't remember ever seeing the blue screen on Friday before I closed it,
unless it showed up later while it was shut.
I just thought I'd tell you what I last did before this happened. I hope
it's not a virus. It's just really random because I hardly even ever use
my laptop and it had been working fine up until now so I don't know
what's going on.
****************************************
I've googled and looked at the Microsoft site, and my hunch is that this
is a corrupt driver, and not malware. I may have to take a trip to see
the machine in person, but if I can guide her over the phone, that is
much preferred.
I want to avoid a clean install.
Can anyone point me a direction to start?
(Yes, I wish they wouldn't use P2P programs like Limewire, whether this
caused this or not.)
Thank you.