Expert: Brian Benosky - 9/8/2009

Question
QUESTION: Good day, I wonder if you could save me here... I own a Dell with Windows XP Client Edition, I Installed Avast! Antivirus version 4 yesterday that seemed to interfere with something in my hard drive, I noticed The zone alarm previously installed could be the reason...
As soon as I finished installing the antivirus It detected something was interfering with the program and the IRQL screen appeared. I restarted the computer and immediately uninstalled the antivirus. And even though I can access my desktop and everything seems to work fine I got this problems:

1. The IRQL Not Less or Equal ---> 0x000000D1 (0xE2239000, 0x00000002, 0x00000000, 0xAA365151) , once in a while

2. Minimun of Virtual Memory

3. (0xc0000017) on 0x7c812a6b

4. When I choose to shut down windows, It starts the process but never ends, I mean, I doesn't shuts down by its own.

I tried restoring my system but no previous restoring date is available, and also considered the Hotfix option from http://support.microsoft.com/kb/905205/    but didn't perform it yet...

Help please! what should I do? Do you recommend  performing the Hotfix?
Thanks for your time, and Sorry, I know its a lot. Have a nice day.



ANSWER: Hi Sophie

It sounds more like a hardware problem.  Let's first try adjusting the paging file to increase the virtual memory.  Click Control Panel > System > Advanced > Performance (click Settings) > Advanced > Virtual Memory > Change.  Increase the amount to the max recommended level.  Restart and see if that helps things.  If not, let me know and we can look further into it.  Also, let me know the amount of RAM you have installed (Right click My Computer, choose Properties).  At this time, I would not perform the hotfix until we determine what is causing the problem.

Brian

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: hello again! ok here it is, I didn't know what was de amount of max virtual memory recommended level, but I changed it to min: 500 MB and max: 800 MB..is that ok?

The RAM: 1.70GHz, 248 MB

thanks, Your phrase is SO true...

Answer
Hi Sophie

You are running XP with very little RAM installed.  You have 256MB installed, where it is recommended to run 512MB or greater.  When you try to run too many memory intensive programs at once, the system will freeze or crash.  Adding Avast to your system was too much to ask of the memory.  Not knowing the model computer you have, I recommend going to the Dell site and search for your system.  You will find instructions for determining the type of RAM you need.  The temporary fix is to determine any non-essential programs which are using too much memory and close them down.  Click Ctrl-Alt-Del to bring up your Task Manager.  Go to the Processes tab.  Look through the Memory column to see which programs are using the greatest amount of memory.  Identify the offenders, then shut down the corresponding program.  Just be careful not to close any essential Windows processes.  Hope that helps you out.

Brian