PLEASE HELP! MY COMPUTER IS DEAD! (W98)

[EADGBE]

I NEED YOUR HELP BADLY!!!

I am typing this on a friend's computer...my PC has COMPLETELY died and
I don't know what to do!

Here are the facts:

I have an eMachines 550mHz Pentium III computer. It has 256mb of RAM
(the max for this machine). I am running Windows 98. I have not had
any problems at all, but in the last couple of days I noticed that the
computer was booting strangely...the desktop would disappear and the
reappear when the machine was fully booted up. It's never done that
before, but since there were no other problems, I ignored it.

Today, I was playing Quake on my machine. Quake has been installed on
my machine for a LONG time. I have played Quake TONS of times before
with ABSOLUTELY NO problems...but I will say that I have installed new
software since the last time I played Quake...almost a year ago, I got
a new HP printer and installed the software for it. (It is important
that I mention the printer software here...read on to find out why...)

All of a sudden, I TOTALLY lost control of the Quake game. I was firing
bullets in every direction. My viewfinder, which is controlled by my
mouse, was looking all around, going as fast as it could. NONE of the
game controls would work. The computer was basically freaking out AT
TOP SPEED. I did a Control-Alt-Delete and made Quake quit (this was my
only option...I could NOT quit the normal way).

After Quake quit, I was back to the desktop...BUT THE HIGH-SPEED
PROBLEM CONTINUED. I stared in disbelief as I watched my mouse cursor
FLY all around the screen, opening and closing windows faster than I
could see. It was as if my mouse buttons were stuck and the computer
was processing everything the mouse cursor touched. I'm not
kidding...the computer was FLYING!!! I have never seen it do this
before, and I have never seen it move this fast before. There was
NOTHING I could do to gain control of the computer. The computer was
COMPLETELY out of my control.

I hit Control-Alt-Delete to shut the computer down (once again, this
was my only option...I had *NO* control over the computer except for
this). The computer shut down, but not before giving me the dreaded
"blue screen of death" saying that Windows had encounted a "fatal
exception."

My monitor--a ViewSonic A70--has its own error message system that
displays status messages when the computer is shut off. When the
computer shut down, I saw a message on my monitor that I had NEVER seen
before. It said "FREQUENCY RANGE EXCEEDED." I do NOT know what that
means, but this error message came from my MONITOR, not my computer.
The computer had already powered down when I saw this message on my
monitor.

After this weird crash, I did 3 things:

1) I optimized my hard drive, which was severely fragmented. During
the optimizing process, my Norton software told me that my hard drive
has some "LOST CLUSTERS" whatever that means. The software supposedly
fixed this problem.

2) I ran my Norton anti-virus program. It found NO viruses.

3) I tried booting up my machine with a previous registry version. I
get the following problems no matter what I do.

NOW I HAVE THE FOLLOWING PROBLEMS:

When I boot the computer back up, there is an error message saying that
the HP printer software had "ABNORMAL TERMINATION". I checked my
printer folder, and my HP printer was NOWHERE to be found. In fact,
the only printer available was a laser printer that hadn't been used or
even connected to this computer in over 4 years!!!!! My present
printer had simply vanished!!! I also had a desktop wallpaper pattern
that I hadn't seen in probably 2 years! I COULD BE WRONG, BUT IT SEEMS
TO ME THAT MY COMPUTER'S REGISTRY HAS CRASHED AND MY COMPUTER WAS USING
AN OLDER REGISTRY VERSION...DOES THIS MAKE SENSE?

My video card is an NVIDIA, and before all of this mess, I was able to
adjust the brightness and contrast of my monitor with some special
NVIDIA software that I downloaded. The NVIDIA software is now NOWHERE
to be found, and because of that, my monitor is MUCH darker now and can
no longer be adjusted.

Instead of my current screensaver, my computer has reverted back to an
older screensaver that is password-protected. Since I no longer used
this older screensaver, I have long since forgotten my password, and
whenever the computer goes to sleep, I cannot use the computer because
I can't remember my password to turn the screensaver off! WHY THE HECK
AM I BACK TO USING AN OLD SCREENSAVER ALL OF A SUDDEN?

I have tried re-installing my HP printer software. The software
completes the installation process, but my printer *STILL* is NOWHERE
to be found. When I open my "Printers" folder, there is nothing there
except that old laser printer that I haven't used in years. I CANNOT
use or access my current printer software at all. AS A RESULT, I NO
LONGER HAVE ANY PRINT CAPABILITY WHATSOEVER. The only thing I have been
able to get rid of is the error message saying that the HP software has
an "Abnormal Termination".

So far, I have tried to use my AOL software and my Microsoft Word
software. In both cases, the program freezes up and does not respond
to any command whatsoever. None of the menus work, and I am unable to
type any input. Programs quit without warning...OR...they do not quit
at all, and I am forced to do a Control-Alt-Delete to force them to
quit. INTERESTING SIDE NOTE: certain buttons in AOL that are
mouse-controlled QUIVER when I put the mouse cursor over them, as if I
were clicking on those buttons in rapid-fire fashion. But nothing
happens.

When I view the "Add/Remove Software" window in the Control Panel, I see several programs listed that I deleted AGES ago. When I try to delete these programs once more, I get an error message saying that the operation cannot continue because the program(s) cannot be found.

My Recycle Bin now has four items in it--even though I always keep my
Recycle Bin empty--but when I try to empty the Recycle Bin, the
computer asks me if I am sure I want to delete these 98 items!!!!!!!
THERE ARE ONLY FOUR ITEMS IN THE BIN!!!!

When I am on the Desktop, everything works OK. I am able to open
folders and close them. I can move icons around on the Desktop with no
problem. But I CANNOT use any software, and I CANNOT print.

BASICALLY, MY COMPUTER IS NOW UNUSABLE AND I HAVE NO IDEA WHY IT
HAPPENED. WHAT DO I HAVE TO DO TO GET IT BACK TO WORKING THE WAY IT
USED TO? I DON'T WANT TO WIPE MY HARD DRIVE CLEAN! ISN'T THERE SOME
WAY I CAN SOLVE THIS PROBLEM WITHOUT HAVING TO COMPLETELY START
OVER?????

[report_2]

About the only thing that I can offer is to restore yesterdays registry or one a day before the 'fast' acting symptoms occurred.

Restart the PC and before it changes from the POST screen start holding down the left Ctrl key until the Windows Startup menu appears.
From there select Command Prompt (#5 I think).

At the C:\> prompt type
scanreg /restore
Hit Enter
Scanreg should open displaying 5 saved registries.
They each should show a status and a date.
Each were created upon the first boot of that given date.
So, if the PC started up just fine yesterday 8Jun05 and this was before the 'fast' problem occurred then select that one if it's status was "Good".
Otherwise use the day before.

You want the one that was created the morning of the day that the problem started and which is before the problem started.

It does sound like you have an old one working.

HTH
Bryan

[EADGBE]

Thanks for your help, Bryan, but I have tried that already and found more strange things...

First of all, the very FIRST time I ran scanreg/restore, the only thing I saw was the present day's registry entry, plus three other registry entries, each from 2001 and 2002...I'm talking REAL old entries.

Now, when I run scanreg/restore, the ONLY thing I see are the registry entries for the past couple of days...and only A COUPLE of them work, and of the two that work, BOTH of them still give me the same problems I described in my original post. I SURE WISH I STILL HAD THE OPTION OF TRYING A COUPLE OF THOSE REGISTRY ENTRIES FROM 2001/2002!!!

OTHER PROBLEMS I HAVE JUST NOTICED:

In the "Add/Remove Programs" window in my Control Panel, I see the names of SEVERAL programs that I deleted AGES AGO. When I try to re-delete these programs, I get an error message saying that the process cannot continue because the program(s) cannot be found.

I can no longer choose any Desktop themes/sounds. I am stuck with the Windows default theme/sounds. I have NO other options available. Furthermore, all Folder icons are LARGE, even when I specify other icon sizes and view formats.

I am certainly NO expert, but it really does look like a good part of my Windows OS has been damaged beyond repair, and I think I'm going to have to re-install Windows completely. What do you think?

[Rushpro1851]

this is the work of a vires, i would back up all my saved files then format the hard drive(AKA delete EVERY LAST BIT) make sure you have back up disk that came with your computer then get to command prop and type in:
format C:
then put thouse back up disk's in and let it rip!
(if you don't have any backup disk's, a win98 disk will work just as good!)
if that dosn't work you computer is really mest up! then try booting off thouse backup disk's or win98 disk. if it will not boot off the CD-ROM drive change some of your BIOS settings