Hello. I have a Gateway Select 950 Athlon (new in December of 2000) which came installed with ME. Continue to get the above error message no matter what program I am in and what task I am performing. Also get a protection error on shutdown. Gateway has replaced the memory (128 mb) the hard drive (20 gb), the processor and the motherboard. I think they now think I am making everything up, perhaps because I have nothing better to do than talk to idiots at tech support for 20 minutes every day?? They keep telling me that they will replace what I know is a defective system after they TRY ONE MORE THING... I am at the end of my rope as they will not replace anything now. I have done much research on this particular OE address to no avail. Any suggestions would be very much appreciated. Thanks in advance!

Hi Cristine, As I hear your story, Gateway doesn't seem to be a brand to buy... What hardware is in your system (mainboard, videocard and other hardware: manufacturer and type). What about the IRQ's, are there any shared (should be figured out in the device manager: as far as I remember - I'm now at my work on a Win98 system- Control Panel -> System -> device Mnager -> select My Computer -> properties -> sort on IRQs)? What amount of free memory do you have (Check it with start->Programs->Accessories->System tools->System Monitor)? Did you check all drivers for your hardware ? May be some hardware should get newer drivers. Is Win ME updated, youu can find this possibility in the Control panel. I don't know if Gateway installs specific software or drivers. If so, are the additional installs and the Win ME OS delivered with your system ? An option is to reinstall the OS yourself because the system doesn't work now anyway. This requiers of course that you have all the installation software yourself (I donn't know if this is the case with preinstalled systems... I never buy brand computers; I buy the hardware components , assemble them, buy the software and install it myself... except the last one, since I had no time, I did let it assemble and install in the store where I bought it) Good advice for installation of Windows is to remove all hardware, which is additional (eg soundcard, network adapter,...), and just start the installation with as less cards plugged in as possible. Mostly, I start with all drives connected and only my video card plugged in. After installation, you can plug in an additional card, start up, install drivers and software, restart and shut down. After that, you go on with the next card and so on. Advantage is that if additional hardware should be responsible for your problem, you can trace it. Hope it will help you...