[Resolved] Occasional Blue scrren on boot up w/fatal exception error.

[Ray Goodall]

Occasionally on boot up, just as the windows 98 screen appears, I get a blue screen and a fatal exception error message and instruction to press any button to continue. Most of the time this works and windows continues to load. Other times it will just lock up and I will have to shut down and restart. I am using an AMD K6-2 w/128meg RAM, 30gig hard drive. Window 98 second edition. After boot up all other programs seem to work fine. Any suggestions anyone?

 

[Davey7549]

Ray
Welcome to TSG!
When you get these fatal exception error is there any more information it give like A fatal exception error has occured in module such and such. If so please let us know what detail you can give and maybe we can narrow the problem down a bit.
Dave

 

[Rollin' Rog]

When I see someone say amd k6/2 and Fatal Exception...

http://forums.techguy.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=40555&highlight=amd

If it is that specific error address, the usual fix is to install extra cooling hardware, or at least a software cooler.

 

[Ray Goodall]

The blue screen message reads as follows:
"A fatal exception 0E has occurred at 0028C154B620.
The current application will be terminated. Press any key
to continue."

 

[Rollin' Rog]

Hard to troubleshoot intermittant errors like that. But one thing that loads at about that time are the autoexec.bat and config.sys files

You can use the System Configuration Utility, msconfig to examine and selectively bypass suspect files or groups of files.

For starters have a look at what is loading from autoexec.bat and try bypassing that. Nothing there is required for Windows. An antivirus running from there would be particularly suspect.

The Win98 Startup troubleshooter will help guide you.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;q188867

 

[Ray Goodall]

Many thanks for the tips on the blue screen "fatal error" msg on boot-up. I have at this point downloaded "Waterfall" and installed it and will be looking at a new fan for the CPU. Have gone thru the trouble shooting phase of Windows and followed those instructions. Again, thanks for the leads.

 

[Rollin' Rog]

Your welcome Ray, let us know how it goes. Extra cooling for the amd k6/2 is always worthwhile in my observation, even if it isn't the answer for a specific problem.

 

[Ray Goodall]

First, I would like to thank all who took the time to help on this problem. However, the answer was the video drivers. After a few days of working good and then failing completely I, took the computer to the local tech. He found that the video drivers had been compromised in some manner. Installing new drivers seems to have done the trick. Again your help is much appreciated.

Ray

 

[Rollin' Rog]

Thanks for the follow-up Ray, I'm glad to hear you found an answer.