What does this Error Message Mean...?

I have been having trouble with a system, getting to to boot without freezing up at windows. This is the problem I am having.

After leaving computer sit for an hour or so, I turn it on...it loads ok until it gets to the part where windows explorer would normally load up and the desktop shows up with the icons...then it freezes. I hit the restart button, it runs through scandisk, gets to windows, loads the start bar and freezes. I restart, it runs scandisk, and I have a successful boot.

I have a gigabyte board, amd athlon 1600 xp, lucent modem, 3d labs vid card. Latest drivers.

I have tried removing my modem in safe mode with no luck (problem still persists)

When I hit ctrl alt del after a successful boot, i see:

explorer
soundman (installed with mobo sound drivers)
3dldemon (video card i believe)
systray
agrsmmsg

i have just recently got this error message when booting this last time...

A fatal exception OE has occurred at 0028:C0005257 in VXD VMM(01) + 00004257


Any ideas?

try changing your ram. vxd is a virtual device driver and vmm i believe(?) has to do with memory.

that error has only BSOD on me once....still a potential problem??

I guess I will have to pull a stick out of my system to test.

Running 2k, XP Home, Pro?

sorry 98se

Boot to SM, run MSCONFIG. Turn off everything at startup. If it still doesn't boot, boot to a C: prompt and run scanreg /restore. Other than that, I agree with storm's idea

Meatwad

I tried your suggestions... still booting freezing, booting freezing then success.

What is with the third try???

I will try switching out ram.

There's a nifty little program out there called goldmem that checks the RAM in your system. I forget the website, but you could probably find it using google. They have a free version you could try running.

Well, I switched Ram...seems to boot ok and everything. Also, I think I may have had a few of the hdd activity and power and reset etc pins mixed up. Not quite sure how I got it to boot like it was, but it did. Could this have caused a problem once in windows???

Thanks

VxD=Virtual Device Driver
VMM, VMM32=Virtual Memory Manager

I used to have the same problem all the time, but I didn't have to replace my RAM to fix it(fortunately...too poor to fix things by replacing them) All I had to do was wipe and reload.
Not sure what caused it though, but it shouldn't have been your RAM...

Unfortunately there are two parts of Windows with the acronym VMM, the Virtual Memory Manager and the Virtual Machine Manager. However a Google search indicates this error is most likely attributable to a memory problem. If swapping RAM has cleared it, a DIMM could have faulty memory onboard, or a contact may have tarnished. You could try polishing the edge contacts on the DIMM(s) with a pencil eraser. Also, you could check the memory settings in the CMOS setup to ensure they match the RAM you're using, or even try slower settings - on rare occasions memory drops below spec when it ages a bit.

It is brand new PC133 256 stick.

I switched it out with another and tried a different slot. Not locking up on boot anymore....

that's good right :)

just got to change the cpu fan, i know the guy won't like the loudness of the thermaltake volcano 7 i put in there... any suggestions?