Win ME restarts itself

also just startup in safe mode and click start -> run -> regedit
then go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE -> SOFTWARE -> Microsoft -> Windows -> CurrentVerison -> Run -> this is where windows loads all of your programs that have icons in the bottom rt. hand corner, some of the programs will not put on icon in the corner thou

p.s. make a back up of your registry before you modify it

p.s.s. also on a side note this registry area is where most virues write there startup too

Hi Guys,

I've been out most of the afternoon, and just got back home. I'm still pondering what in the heck is going on with my PC... to answer a few of your questions:

1. No, the 98SE does NOT get as far as the ME was, before it would restart.
2. The ME would NOT run in safe mode, 98SE will.

I am going to try this now:

1. Coping the himem.sys from my known good start up disk.
2. Checking out that I only have explorer.exe, rundll.32 and taskmon at startup,.
3. Try step-by-step startup with only first windows driver
4. And then, try the regedit to see what happens there.

I'll be back, with my results. Thanks so much for your advice. Good stuff !

Here's what I just came up with:

1. I did a "you pick it" at startup, and choose just the rundll32 and taskmon (there was no explorer.exe option) Nada... still restarted as 98SE was trying to load the system settings (remember it's never started 98SE successfully)
2. I did a step-by-step at startup, chose load win drivers, and chose "yes" for first one (netsup.vxd), and no for all the others and got a blue screen error "VFAT device Initialization Failure" and it said VFAT is not present or unavailable.
3. So, I moved on to the regedit... and I think I missed something from one of the suggestions... once I get into the ..........currentversion -> run... then what should I change/do ? So, I didn't make any changes to that.

Is anyone suspecting the onboard video might be dying? I'm trying to dig up a known-good video card to plug in, to see if that might help me, but... I haven't got my hands on one yet... (all my pc's have onboard video)

a quick update to exactly what I did in the step-by-step start:

1. process system registry - yes
2. create startup log - no
3. process startup device drivers (config.sys) - no
4. device=c:\windows\himem.sys - yes
5. device=c:\windows\dblbuff.sys - yes
6. devicehigh=c:\windows\ifshlp.sys - yes
NOTE: a quick tour of knowledge base told me my blue screen error of the VFAT failure was because ifshlp.sys wasn't present
7. load the windows graphical user interface - no
8. win - yes
9. load all windows drivers - yes
a. loaded the first one - vnetsup.vxd and NO on all the other ones

the dang thang restarted.

post what is in the registry at run so somebody can take a look and give you some suggestions on what is alright and what might be the culprit, also you said it has never fully started after you installed win98se?

okay, I'll post the reg. Give me a few...

Yes, I did a new install of 98SE, and it loaded all of the CD, and 'attempted' to load 98SE, when a new install loads... you get the little message saying updating system files... well... that's when it restarts. It's really never loaded in a normal mode... I can get it to start in safe mode, but when it attempts to load in normal mode... poof.

I'll post the registry in a few...

Interesting. A Google search of vnetsup.vxd shows quite a few with problems with it. I can't look in more detail at the moment, but might be worth a look

I'm back, with not good news. I cannot get my registry file zipped small enough to get it off this sick pc, so I can post it.

I'm afraid I'm admitting defeat, where this pc is conerned. I put a known good video card in it, thinking it might be the video going... and it still restarts itself, going into 98SE in normal mode.

My suspicions are now at the RAM, but I have no way to test that. It runs the BIOS test and tests 64MB, and in safe mode, shows 64MB. But, I guess there could be a million other things wrong, processor, motherboard, whatever, that I cannot test for.

Thanks for your suggestions. Good stuff to tuck away for the next sickie.

~jp

well I don't think it is the RAM or any of the PCI cards, because if it was the RAM or PCI cards then the POST either wouldn't happen or would look weird. That is what I have observed with bad RAM modules and Bad PCI cards I still think it is an issue with win98se, Boot from a floppy disk and wipe out the partition and format the C: drive and start clean again. http://www.bootdisk.com has some pretty good boot disk images go with the win98se OEM disk that way you can have CD-ROM support in DOS to load win98se

Tip on the registry - don't try to do the whole thing. Just export the run key to a floppy or simply write down and post the values and the name of the executable, for example:

HotKeysCmds hkcmd.exe
vptray vptray.exe
WinampAgent Winampa.exe

etc....

In theory, there shouldn't be that many *lol

Actually the more I think about it, it's probably a waste of time. I doubt that's the cause anymore, based on a clean install.

Yes you can test the RAM. I would just in case because you never know. I am not doubting ModernDestroyer in any way, I just think it wouldn't hurt to test. Go here http://www.memtest86.com/ and download the latest version. I have never used it myself but I have heard it is an awesome test. Good luck.

Okay... I went to the memtest86 website (awesome resource ) and downloaded their RAM test program... that was about 5 hours ago, and this thing is still testing the RAM in this beast... I need to take a good look at their readme, as well as their website, but I believe this testing is couging up some badness in this pc's RAM! yippee... am I getting somewhere ?! My strong point is NOT RAM, and reading the addressing, ect. of RAM... so that's why I said I need to study what I've got, when this finishes, to see if I can determine if I've got something substantial here.

Could this be it ?! Wouldn't I be a happy girl ?!

Yes, memtest86 is outstanding. However, 5 hours on 64MB RAM is probably not a good thing -- or in your case if it identifies RAM as the problem maybe it is a good thing! At least you'll know what the problem is. I hope it is -- this post is making me tired! (or maybe it's just the fact that it's midnight! *lol)

I hear what your saying ! It's only 10:00pm here, but I feel like I've been beat, by this PC. At least, with this memory test... I can take the mem stick down to the shop, and "hopefully" see if they can get me another good one, maybe two ?! (I couldn't function on 64mb!) I'm really hoping that this explains why the computer won't lift itself up into normal mode... it would go into safe, but not normal... maybe it just taxed the RAM just enough to make it restart ?! sounds likea good idea, eh??

I hope that is your problem, RAM is cheap and easy to replace. If you have some RAM lying around or know someone who does, it would be easy to swap and test.