Illegal operation, and shutdown

[mike12]

A friend e-mail me the below message that she is getting :
" Here is some more insight for you regarding the problem. It only happens when I try to check my mail. Last night I surfed the web (OK.....doggie-paddled 'cause I have dial-up), and I didn't get the pop-up at all. When I'm in the yahoo mail program, I get a pop-up box that says, "your computer has performed an illegal operation and will be shut down. If this problem persists, contact the program vendor." After I click the "X" at the top, I get another box with a yellow triangle on the left side. I don't remember exactly what this says, but when I click "OK" I go back to my desktop. The computer doesn't exactly shut down."
It seems like a problem with Yahoo Mail to me ?? I also know she was trying to upgrade to the newer AVG 7.5, but I am not sure if she was successful. I have asked her that in another e-mail. Suggestions, please ??
I believe she has Windows 98, will check for sure.

[Statica]

What browser is she using? If it's IE .. is she running the latest version? Has she tried with an alternative like Firefox to see if the error persists.
In cases like this, it's imperative to know what the error is.. more than just knowing that she got an error. She needs to write down what the error is exactly as it says.

[mike12]

Thanks for the reply Statica, here is some additional info. She is using Windows 98 SE and Internet Explorer 6, with Outlook Express. She would never even try Firefox, so that is not an option. I asked her for that exact error message she gets in the yellow box, will let you know when she replies. She did conform that it seems like this problem started after she tried updating to AVG 7.5, which was not successful by the way. I am thinking this may be the cause, so I told her to go into msconfig / startup/ and uncheck anything that refered to AVG, reboot the computer, and then try Yahoo again, and see if she still gets that "illegal operation" message again. Will let you know what happens. Thanks again, Mike

[mike12]

In addition to the error message in my first post, she gets this message:
"There was an internal problem with one of the windows you were using. It is recommended that you save all your work, close windows, and reboot your computer" There is another box labeled DETAILS. If she clicks on that box, she gets the following :

EXPLORER caused an invalid page fault in module KERNEL32.DLL at 0187:bff74347.
Registers:
EAX=00000001 CS=0187 EIP=bff74347 EFGLS=00010202
EBX=0733e390 SS=018f ESP=006bed84 EBP=00000000
ECX=00000050 DS=018f ESI=015377b0 FS=5d4f
EDX=81780000 ES=018f EDI=00000050 GS=0000
Bytes at CS:EIP:

0f cl 01 40 c2 04 00 83 01 00 6a 01 51 68 59 00

Stack dump:
7c251015 00000050 8000ffff 0733e390 006bedc4
0733e390 7ad424fc 015377bo 7adcbedc 015377bo
041a5588 7adcc2ao 00000113 0234bb30 00002047
0733e390

She just got cable, and was able to download and install AVG 7.5. So I guess we can rule that out. But again, the problem started (as she remembers) after she unsuccessfully tried upgrading to 7.5.
Hope this means something to someone. I already had her do that SFC thing, with no luck. Many thanks , Mike

[mike12]

I Googled the following error message that she got,
EXPLORER caused an invalid page fault in module KERNEL32.DLL at 0187:bff74347
and I got an article stating that the video driver is probably bad. It listed four things to try like,
Using the default mouse settings, Turn down the color depth, turn down the graphics acceleration, and turn off the desktop wallpaper. If doing these four things corrects the problem, then the video driver is probably corrupt. Well, she tried all four, and that did not solve anything. I just e-mailed her and told her to update Ad-aware and do the scan, then do a disc cleanup. Then go to Add / remove programs and remove anything that sounds like AVG. Do another disc cleanup, and then see if she can read her messages on Yahoo mail. Then I said she needs to go download AVG again. I still think the problem is related to her first unsuccessfull attempt to download and install AVG 7.5. That is when the problems started, to the best of her knowledge. I am out of ideas, any other suggestions would be greatly appreciated. As originally stated, she can surf the web for hours with no problem. But as soon as she go to Yahoo to read her mail is when she gets the error messages.