Reboots when signing offline 1

[luckeedog]

I'm running 2000Pro and when I close AOL to get offline my system reboots, any suggestions?

 

[kippy13]

Hi,
Are u running an uptodate antivirus programme?
Can u download hijackthis(do a search in google) run it and post the log file here.....i think this may be virus or spyware related.

 

[bcastner]

right-click My Computer, Properties, Advanced, Startup and Recovery Options, and uncheck to disable the setting to automaticly restart on errors.

Then Control Panel, Administrative Tools, Event Viewer. You should find a critical error message in detail.

What is happening is that your computer is experiencing a stop error, and restarting.

The first change I suggested above is to ask the machine to display a blue screen error message rather than restart. Write down the details and post them here.

 

[luckeedog]

Thanks bcastner for your input. I made the changes that you suggested and was trouble free for about 6-7 AOL log offs but the problem has reoccured. I copied down the error message from the blue screen as you suggested, it goes as follows-

*** stop: 0x0000001e (oxc0000005,oxeb792091, 0x00000000, 0x0000003c)
KMODE_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED
***address eb792091 base at eb790000, datestamp 3d343a62-wanatw4.sys
beginning dump of physical memory
physical memory dump complete. contact your system administrator or technical support group

Thanks for your help,
Luckeedog

 

[bcastner]

1) Click START. Then get to ACCESSORIES.. Then open up 'WINDOWS EXPLORER' (*NOT* Internet Explorer)
2) Click on 'TOOLS' then 'FOLDER OPTIONS'. Click the 'VIEW' tab. Make sure that: 'Show Hidden Files and Folders' is CHECKED. Also, make sure 'HIDE EXTENSIONS FOR KNOWN FILE TYPES' is UN-CHECKED. If you have a setting for 'SHO THE CONTENTS OF SYSTEM FOLDERS', make sure that is CHECKED. Click APPLY, then OK.
3) OK.. Navigate to your C: drive. Click the '+' next to Windows. Then open up the INF folder.
4) Click on the 'Name' column so that the files are in alphabetical order. Scroll down until you get to files that begin with 'OEM' followed by a number.
5) Right off the bat -- if you have *ANY* OEM files that are showing a filesize of 0 -- delete them. Also, be sure to delete its corresponding PNF file if one exists. (Example OEM11.INF and OEM11.PNF)
6) The next step will take a little work. You want to check each INF file by opening it, and looking for indications that it is for the AOL Adapter. If you double-click an INF file, it should open in Notepad by default. Look for a line that says 'WANATW.INF' at the top. If you dont see it, close the file and move to the next OEM INF file. Once youve found one, delete it along with its corresponding PNF file, as above.
7) Continue until you have gone through all OEM INF files. When you are done, reboot your machine and start AOL. AOL should automatically re-install the AOL adapter files correctly for you.

 

[bcastner]

You should adjust the dirctory path for the above to read WINNT instead of windows.

 

[luckeedog]

bcastner
Well I went to the OEM files in Windows and right off the bat I saw that the OEM6.INF filesize was 0 so I deleted it, there was no PNF file. I then proceeded to open each OEM file looking for any reference to WANATW.INF or AOL and found it in the OEM2.INF file so I deleted it along with the PNF file. I checked all the rest of the OEM files to make sure that that was the only one with reference to WANATW.INF and it was. I rebooted and did some work online and closed AOL with out a problem. I later went back online and this time when I closed AOL my computer rebooted. I went back to the OEM files and rechecked all the INF files and didn't find anything wrong, its driving me nuts!!
Thanks Again,
Luckeedog

 

[bcastner]

Your computer really has problems with the Wan Miniport driver intalled by AOL.

What version of AOL do you have installed? If < Version 8, and update is recommended. After making the changes above, when signing onto AOL using AOL 8, you should have received the message &quot;AOL has detected a problem with your Internet connection, please restart your computer and try signing on again&quot;. In AOL 9, AOL reports at startup, &quot;AOL is about to install files necessary to connect to the Internet. Your computer may need to be restarted&quot;. These are both indications of a missing or improperly installed AOL Adapter, a.k.a &quot;WAN Miniport Driver (ATW)&quot;.

Use the AOL System Information application and then go to the 'Utilities' tab and press the 'Uninstall AOL Adapter' button, and then restart to see if a resinstallation of the adapter can occur.

 

[ozzyozzie]

luckeedog - did you ever get it resolved? I had the same problem (AOL 9, Win 2k, Comcast Cable) and got rid of the .inf and .pnf files. AOL did not attempt to recreate the adapter as far as I could tell. So far no BSOD for three days now :0)

I did a hard drive search for files with wanatw in their names and had six hits:

C:\Program Files\Common Files\AOL\ACS\InsWanAtw.dll - 116 KB - 9/16/2003 4:59 PM

The next five are all time stamped 1/10/2003 - 5:13 PM

C:\Program Files\Common Files\AOL\ACS\wanatw.cat - 8 KB

C:\Program Files\Common Files\AOL\ACS\wanatw.inf - 4 KB

C:\Program Files\Common Files\AOL\ACS\wanatw4.sys - 34 KB

C:\Program Files\Common Files\AOL\ACS\wanatw4n.sys - 33 KB

C:\WINNT\system32\drivers\wanatw4.sys - 33KB ---- Notice it matches the wanatw4n.sys file size

Hope this helps...

 

[bcastner]

ozzyozzie,

You experience has been mine.

Clean if inf and pnf files, upgrade (if appropriate) your AOL version, and on sign-on to AOL again. If there are missing driver files it repairs the situation and the problem clears.