Random bsod on Dell Laptop

[aplatt99]

Well I am new here. Thanks for any help you can provide. I have a laptop that is only about 1 yr old. XP Pro SP2, all windows updates are loaded. The problem is the bsod. It is never constant. I have run the Dell diags on all hardware, including disk and memory. all report no errors. the bsod does not occur in the same applications, nor at the same point when using the PC. I have attached the dmp files and hope that someone can give me some insight. I attempted to use the bsod diag website provided at the top of this forum, but could not find a reference to my bsod. Again, thanks for any help

AP

 

[Route44]

Do you have Quicken installed? In both your minidumps the process ActSage.exe appears and can be a legitimate driver for a legitimate software.

There is also Act! software for Windows.

But the problem is that there is a backdoor trojan that goes by ActSage.exe.

Also your minidump errors are 0X8E: KERNEL_MODE_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED
A kernel mode program generated an exception which the error handler didn’t catch. These are nearly always hardware compatibility issues (which sometimes means a driver issue or a need for a BIOS upgrade).

Don't worry about the BIOS. The issue is is it hardware or a driver problem or are you infected. Not enough to go on at the moment.

I suggest doing a virus scan, etc. It could be that you may need to update your drivers for this software.

 

[aplatt99]

Thanks for your quick reply. I do not have Quicken installed. I do run QuickBooks 2008. I also have Sage Act (CRM) database software that is installed. We use it as our contact management software. It run all the time. I already upgraded the BIOS to the latest version from Dell.

I ran a av scan with AVG and a RootKit scan as well. All clean. We attempted to install the latest update for ACT and now ACT has blown up and we can't use it. I think I will completely remove ACT and reinstall. We will see. What else?? I will visit Dell support to ensure I have the latest drivers for my devices.

Thanks again. Anything else you can think of

AP

 

[Route44]

See if the Act uninstall rectifies the issue. Make sure all remnants are gone. Sometimes software will leave drivers behind and cause issues even though the software was uninstalled and is no longer used.

if no more BSODs I think you are safe in assuming it was this software. Sometimes all it takes is just one driver to cause problems.

If you are still getting BSODs then post your minidumps and we'll take it from there. By the Intuit does utilize ACT in some of their offerings.

 

[raybay]

BSOD's in the Dell laptops are frequently driver problems.
Do you have any yellow of red flags in your Device Manager?
I would download all drivers and downloads from the Dell site, then reinstall them one at a time after removing or disabling the old driver. It will take some time, but often will correct these errors.
You may also benefit from using the drivers on your Dell disk set, rather than the downloads, because often enough the driver updates are the cause of such problems.
Please let us know what you learned.

 

[aplatt99]

ok...we attempted an uninstall of ACT 2008 that failed. We attempted an uninstall of QB2008 that failed. Finally nailed down the culprit as a corrupt .Net Framework installation. l located the .net cleanup utility and ripped .net out. reinstalled .net 1.1, 2.0 and 1.1 sp1. Reinstalled QB. Reinstalled ACT. the world appears round once again. we will see. while the computer was available, i also loaded the optional driver updates from MS. thanks so much for your help. by the way i have another laptop that is exhibiting similar issues with a bsod, but not the same codes. can i post a new thread and get some additional help?
thanks again
ap

 

[Route44]

Computers, who can figure them? I commend you are your diagnostic slueth work. I think it would be okay to continue posting here.