help keep getting bsod

[mad_mike]

hi all i am ahing prob with 98se (no surpise there then) i keep getting blue screen of death when ever i use windows media player and some time it just stops responding and comes up with system busy and then system unstable. my system specs are a amd athlon k7 700mhz, ati rage128 pro, hercules muse xl sound card gigbyte ga7ix mobo 640mb of ram and 1 20gb hdd and one 30 hdd the 30 has os on it. cant think of any thing elase to say but i know some one will ask. just want to know if there is any way of fixing it as i want to learn how to fix problems insted of keep formatting hdd

cheers mike

[Panama Red]

First off, is your system fully updated from Windows Update? Many "fixes" have been applied to 98se over the years and the frequent bsod's are much less common with a fully updated system.

Second, I would recommend a couple of free hardware tests to make sure your problem isn't memory or hard drive related. Use Memtest86+ to make a boot floppy and test the memory. Use the hard drive manufacturer's site to download their appropriate diagnostic software in order to test both drives. If the two drives are from different manufacturers, use the correct software for each one.

[glc]

Remove 128mb of your ram to get it down to 512mb, or read this article:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/q253912/