Hello everyone!

I have an old Toshiba laptop running Windows ME. I have used it for years and have had little trouble with it. During that time, I carried this machine to my job everyday and plugged into the LAN to gain internet access and access to shared drives and printers scattered around the office. These connections were always wired connections (not wireless).

Wen I changed jobs, I no longer needed to bring this machine into work so I started using it at home. There, I have a wireless connection to a router and cable modem for internet access. Ever since I started using this wireless connection, it seems that when I startup this laptop, about 1/2 the time it gives me a "Windows Protection error. You must restart your PC." And yes, this is a blue screen of death.

Cycling the power puts me into safe mode (the battery on this laptop is shot so I always run it with the power supply plugged in). Restarting from safe mode sometimes starts the PC so I can use it. Other times, I get the same error statement.

What causes this error message? I only started seeing this message when I began using this PC at home with a wireless connection to the modem. Is this a driver issue?

The other confusing thing to me is that when the computer starts up, sometimes it starts fine and other times it doesn't. It makes me think that the PC does NOT do the same thing every time it starts. It's hard for me to believe that the problem is with the wireless adaptor since Windows hasn't even fully booted before it stops with this error. Sometimes I'll have to restart this PC 3 or 4 times before it gets going. I'm not doing anything except restarting so what is the PC doing that is different that finally gets it to run?

Thanks in advance for shedding some light on this mystery.

Matt

Could very well be a driver conflict. What happens if you dis-able the wireless card and re-boot? Do you still receive the error?

Thanks for your reply.

I have not tried disconnecting the wireless adaptor mostly because the problem does not seem to repeat itself. Sometimes the PC boots just fine and other times it doesn't and the adaptor is plugged in all of the time. Lately, it has been booting fine.

What I am afraid of is that I am on the brink of a fatal hardware failure (which would be bad).

As an update:

I did start unplugging the wireless adaptor before turning on the laptop, and it is starting much more reliably now. Once it is running, I can plug in the wireless adaptor and get connected to my router and then to the Internet.

I hope this helps someone else in the future......Matt

Thanks for your input Matt.
Marked as Resolved.