I've had this problem a while and have done next to everything to try and fix it. The problem is that after my computer being on for 1-4 hours or after playing quake3 or windows media player or Internet Explorer for a few hours, I will get an error in any (and once it happens to one it happens to all until I reboot) of these 3 apps when trying to start them. The error is: IEXPLORE (or Quake3 or windows media player) has caused an invalid page fault in module "unknown".

I hit close and it will close the app if it's Internet explorer or media player. If it's quake or any other 3d game/app, I will get another error right after I click close to the first one:

Quake3 (or any other 3d game) has caused an invalid page fault in Kernel32.dll

Then I click close on that one and the first error msg pops up again, I keep clicking close on both errors about 10-15 times then I get the quake3 console error "could not load open_gl subsystem".

If it is media player or IE after the first error message it will just close the app without popping up more errors, but if I try to use any of these programs further without rebooting I will get the errors again.

Not only this but after using my computer for about 5-6 hours when I go to shutdown or reboot the system halts and I get blue screens OE errors. The OE errors don't contain any reference to .dll's or other files just numbers. I will get the exact wording if needed.

My system specs are:
Abit KA7 Motherboard w/via kx133 chipset
AMD Athlon 850mhz cpu
Hercules 3d prophet II geforce2 64mb video
512mb pc133 Ram (2 128mb micron sticks, 1 256 mb generic)
Soundblaster Live Platinum
IBM 40 gb 7200rpm ata100 hdd
Plextor cdrw 12/10/32

What I've tried:
Disabled unwanted startup items such as loadpowerprofile. Loaded different video drivers, (tried many and there are only a few that work without locking up my system completely after loading the drivers and rebooting. The ones that work are the hercules 12.41 and prior). Flashed my bios twice, tweaked numerous bios settings, tried system default bios settings, etc. Updated to latest drivers for all my hardware including newest via 4and1 drivers. Checked all physical connections. Windows update, scanreg, scandisk, defrag, dr. watson (didn't supply any info) all the available windows tools. Taking out my generic stick of ram. Replaced my IDE cables, was having a problem after booting up with my old hdd being recognized but I think that was the old maxtor hdd as with my current IBM drive it doesn't happen (or hasn't yet). Tried some more things I can't think of now as well and none of them worked or even helped.

This was a clean install of windows me on a brand new freshly formatted hdd. I have used winme before on this same exact system but another hdd and it worked fine for a long time until my old hdd went bad and I had to get a new one.
I want to load XP Pro and see what happens but I have over 20 gigs of data I need to burn onto cd first and would really like to solve this just for the sake of figuring it out. I think it could be hardware but not sure, maybe my video card? Any help on this matter would help I can't find anything online more than I've already tried, thanks.

Zack
misfit@jps.net

Been fighting the same problems with Windows ME for the last year. The real problem is not you, your hardware (well maybe a little) or what you are doing. Its Windows Me. Memory leak problems, and Micro$ofts fix for their problems is NT 2000 or XP Pro.

Our systems hardware is close. About the same speed but different processor, same memory type and size, same type and speed hard drive, fast CD-RW, you have a better video, etc.. but the bottom line is Windows ME was not designed or tested with systems this fast, or memory that big or disk drives that big and fast.

On my system, I can tell at the end of startup if it is going to hang later or during shutdown. So I just reboot. I have all the latest updates and drivers too, so what, these have fixed only a few minor problems so that it takes Windows ME a little longer to crash.

The truth is, the only thing that helps is reducing the number of programs running. You can put the loadpowerprofile (both lines) back in, they just do their thing and exit.

But you can for ever kill TaskMonitor out of Startup and delete all its files out of \Windows\Applog. And kill PCHealth out of Startup, first, then delete PCHealth out of Scheduled Tasks along with all their files in \Windows\PCHealth\HELPCTR\DATACOLL. These are useless programs that cause many more problems than they are worth.

Then turn off Automatic IE Updates (IE - Internet Options - Advanced), Windows Automatic Updates (Control Panal - Automatic Updates) and leave them OFF. Do Updates your self. This will reduce a few more things running that can cause problems.

If you load up memory with many programs, then you need to add a line in the System.INI
file under [vcache] MaxFileCache=524,288 as the Windows ME Swap file does not work if you try to grow it past 800Mb (per Microsoft).

Next, get the DELINDEX.BAT file. Read up on it in these forums and run it. It cleans out a lot of useless files and large index.dat files. These take up memory running IE and that just adds to the problems.

Last, enjoy going to XP Pro knowing you have done everything known to make Windows ME work a little better.

You have tried some of these points but others may be of help
http://www.computing.net/windowsme/wwwboard/forum/18106.html

Thanks very much for the info. :) I will try those suggestions. Thanks again