Random Problems On Cold Start-ups.

[UKGirl]

Hi,

I've been struggling with Explorer invalid page faults and other errors for several months now, which mainly seem to happen only on cold startups. I am using Win98SE, and when I turn the computer on after it having been off for several hours, I continually get Explorer has caused an invalid page fault in module unknown, or sometimes in a named module. I also have had 2 or 3 instances lately where the invalid page fault has been caused by Scanreg which runs automatically at startup. I have also been experiencing a lot of problems with Internet Explorer 6 keep crashing (the Microsoft error report thingy comes up, but when I press for further info, I just get directed to a page that says 'Solution not Found'). I have done 2 or 3 step by step startups and checked my bootlog, but nothing untoward appears on that. I have run spybot which says all is fine, run stinger which says all is fine, I've repaired Internet Explorer 6 which seems to have helped with those problems (I had also lost my thumbnails for jpgs until I repaired IE6 - now they've returned too). I am currently running memtest as I write (which has been running now for just over 5.5 hours) and as yet that has reported no errors with my RAM. I've repaired my registry, replacing any C?\\ with C:\\ (I did this a few days ago, and if anything, things got worse after that with windows not shutting properly and leaving half images superimposed over other windows, until I used the IE6 repair tool as mentioned above).

I am not that computer literate and have learned most of what I've tried on the internet, so I am fast running out of ideas on what to do next.

Once the computer crashes on a cold startup, if I press restart, it will start and then usually everything will run fine for hours again. Also if I do a second cold startup (press shut down so machine goes off completely, then power it up again), it seems to run fine then too. It just seems to dislike the first cold startup after having been switched off for hours.

Does anyone have any idea what could be the problem? Any advice would be greatly appreciated, as this is making my brain ache!