Need some technical help so posting this message in the hope there are some
hardware/software gurus on the list.

I have started to experience frequent Blue Screens of Death (BSOD) on my
system. This doesn't happen while I am playing EQ but will occur sometimes
after I log out and return to the desktop. Another wierd event that
sometimes occurs when I log out from EQ is that the Windows desktop gets
shrunk by about 25%. When this happens, the taskbar along the bottom (where
the Start button and TSR icons are) moves up about a 1/4 of the screen
(about three inches). The right side of the desktop also gets cropped by
about four inches. Any icons that were in the areas that got cropped
disappear from the screen. I have to reboot when this happens. I also get
the BSOD when running regular programs like my web browser (Netscape) and
Office 97 programs.

Another thing that is wierd is that my Norton SystemWorks program
continually tells me my system resources are low. I don't know why this is
occuring because I have 128MB of RAM and relatively few TSRs running. When
I play EQ, the only TSRs running are my SBLive and Norton SystemWorks. I
still get the "user resources low" message even when I disable Norton. This
problem only started occuring after I added 64MB of additional RAM. The RAM
is working, evidence being that my zone times since I added the RAM have
decreased rapidly. This one really puzzles me.

Prior to Windows 95, I got pretty good at tweaking my autoexec.bat and
config.sys files to maximize my RAM. That came from trying to play all the
Ultima games from Origin, the ultimate memory hogs. However, with Win 95, I
have never tried messing with the Windows registry for fear of screwing
things up beyond my ability to fix.

With that said, I think that the problems I am having have something to do
with a corrupt registry. Would like to get some advice on possible fixes
for this. I was considering reinstalling Win 95 but wasn't sure if this
would replace the registry with a clean version. I guess another
possibility would be to install Windows 98. Likewise, not certain if this
would replace the registry with a clean version.

Does anyone have an idea, other than a corrupt registry, of what might be
causing these problems? I have an updated virus program and it doesn't
detect anything so that shouldn't be an issue. Hard drive is optimized so
thats not an issue either. Norton SystemWorks says everything is fine. Is
there some other test that I can run to diagnose my computer to see whats
wrong?

Here are my system specs:

Gateway 300mhz PII
128 MB RAM
SBLive soundcard
Riva TNT video card (16MB AGP)
Hard drive has 1.5 GB of free space

Please send any responses directly to my email address. No need to add
additional unnecessary posts to the list.

Thanks

Galtin of E'ci