IE and Outlook Spontaneous Shutdowns

[Debbie A.]

I have a new computer system with a 2.0 Ghz P4, 512 MB RAM, and a 60 GB hard drive. At first I had installed Win 2000 Pro on it along with IE6 and accompanying version of Outlook Express. Internet Explorer would suddenly give me a message saying "Internet Explorer has encountered errors and must close. A log file is being created." This happened several times per hour, and it also happened occasionally in Outlook Express.

I took off Win 2000, reformatted the HD, and installed Win 98SE and IE 5.5, which I was familiar with and knew to be more reliable. I am still having the same problem. Internet Explorer and Outlook Express are still spontaneously shutting down and/or freezing. Does this mean that I have a hardware problem? Or possibly some bad RAM?

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Debbie

[HAL9000]

I would almost suspect that it is a hardware problem being two clean loads of two totally different OS's with different versions of IE produce the same results. RAM would be my first thought.

[Debbie A.]

That's kinda what I thought too. Does anyone have any other suggestions? I got the computer on ebay, and in judging by the communications I have had thus far with the seller, I don't think it's going to be easy to get them to acknowledge there is a problem.

I'll have to open it up for sure, but I think the system has two 256MB DDRAM sticks. Is one used as primary and the other secondary? Would swapping them help me find out if one is bad?

Debbie

[Statica]

In general Win2K is the more stable of the operating systems. There isnt a primary or secondary RAM of the 2 sticks.
Does the BIOS support changing the timing or speed of the RAM?
You could try tweaking those, or moving from say a Turbo option to one that is slower and see if u can achieve stability.
What you could try is reloading the OS using just one RAM module (check your motherboard for the order in which RAM must be placed for optimal performance). Then try the other stick.

With the amt of issues on buying from faceless people over ebay, consider yourself lucky that its (if it is) only a RAM issue .. a cheap issue to fix.

[Debbie A.]

I emailed the seller, and he suggested that it might be bad RAM also. He will replace it if it is.

I pulled out the DIMM in slot A and moved B to A. I've been running it with just the 256 MB DIMM that was in B for a couple of hours with no problem.

If all goes well, I'll swap them again just to verify that I pulled the bad one the first time.

Debbie