What does this error message mean? (1 Viewer)

[Tom-G]

I keep getting the following illegal operation message while using Internet Explorer:

EXPLORER caused an invalid page fault in

module MSHTML.DLL at 0167:70c77fd3.

Registers:

EAX=00000000 CS=0167 EIP=70c77fd3 EFLGS=00250246

EBX=04dabac4 SS=016f ESP=0427d7dc EBP=0427d7f4

ECX=01f6aeb0 DS=016f ESI=00000000 FS=1a47

EDX=0427d830 ES=016f EDI=0427d830 GS=0000

Bytes at CS:EIP:

8b 40 1c c3 8b c1 8b 48 14 85 c9 75 ec 8b 40 10

Stack dump:

70caac79 0427d830 01f6aec0 04dabac4 70c88608 00000000 0427d818 70d03e76 01f69fa0 70cf926c 0427d830 0427d858 04daba98 04dabac4 00000000 0427d834

Is there anything I can do to prevent this from happening?

 

[Jay H]

From my research many moons ago, ONE possible cause of IPFs usually has to deal with memory and memory management. Memory on a PC is stored in "pages" which are blocks of storage, whether that be blocks in RAM or blocks of virtual memory (on your hard drive). Now when a program requests certain data that's in your memory (virtual or not, the program is transparent to these issues, that's the job of the memory manager) and for some reason the memory manager tries to serve this "page" to the program (In your case, Internet Explorer) and there's a problem with that page, it'll return an Invalid Page Fault. Sometimes it can be caused by memory that's gone south, memory that isn't fast enough for your hardware, or problem with the memory manager. Or it of course could be a software bug. However, to debug such a thing, it is sometimes hard cause it could be any of your memory, L1/L2 cache, RAM, CPU memory, or even virtual memory on your hard drive. I had a problem with this, turned out I think my RAM was too slow and wound up buying 60ns RAM but the only way that I know is to play with your BIOS and turn off L1/L2 cache and stuff to try to isolate it to something. Getting new RAM might help too but until you can isolate it to hardware, it's tough to really pinpoint. IE/NS are memory hogs, one thing you might also try is more RAM, worth a shot except that RAM prices are kind of high these days.

Anyway, that's just a IPF in a nutshell, from what I know. I had some extra RAM DIMMs running around so I was able to isolate it to a RAM stick and then I simply replaced them and my IPFs went away... Good Luck!!

One thing you can also check is the voltages if you have a sensor, try to make sure your +3.3v and +5v is stable and not dropping too much cause cause you can have problems with that.

Jay

 

[Shayne Lebrun]

Actually, try doing a complete reinstall of internet explorer.

 

[Kevin T]

i'm no kind of computer whiz but when i see a *.dll extension i automatically think: there's a problem with a driver. i think a complete reinstall (as suggested) would be in order.

kevin t

 

[JohanK]

I'm w/ Jay; check RAM first. I've had weird issues like that and traced it back to memory.

 

[Shayne Lebrun]

Memory errors don't tend to manifest as single, reproducable errors. They tend to cascade and crash the machine.

 

[Dan B]

I had this error message when playing a particular PC game along with a lot of other people & some experts there also thought it to be some kind of a problem related to memory. That was about the only detail I can remember about it at the moment. (I've never had any problems before or since playing that particular game)

-Dan

 

[Romier S]

From the Microsoft knowledge base:
http://support.microsoft.com/default...;EN-US;q298098
http://support.microsoft.com/default...;EN-US;q175379
There is also a known problem with the Gator software:

Known conflict with the "Gator" utility program -- posted recently to various news groups...
The problem that IE 5.5 and Gator users were having is explained here:
http://www.gator.com/help/faq.html#mshtml

Another page with even more information:
http://www.generation.net/~hleboeuf/ermshtml.htm