Need your BI on my BIOS

  My computer has been misbehaving so I ran an Everest report  and it said that my BIOS may need updating. I then went to Phoenix Tech. Home>Downloads which took me straight to esupport and I had no options but to run BIOS Agent. It said that I needed a BIOS update and ten drivers. When I hit download on one of the lesser drivers I was asked to register before I could go on.
  Is it safe to go on or should I find each one on my own? Once I register are they going to want money? Something in the back of my mind is making me uneasy but I can seem to remember exactly what I had read about this.
  Also, do you think I will mess something up by updating the BIOS? I'm not worried about my documents because I can just put them on a disc first, I'm worried about not being able to boot.
  Any thoughts?

NO NO NO ...stay away from them. Find your motherboard manufacturer and get any updates from them directly....leave your bios alone unless absolutely positively necessary....How is your PC misbehaving?

  Phoenix Tech. is the manufacturer and that is the problem. It just takes you there.
  Freezes, hangs, stack dumps and other annoying stuff. I've run all the windows utilities, I've got minimal startup, no screen saver and I can't get through a Spybot, SAS or Avast scan without a freeze. I've even frozen up on the occasional defrag.
  I don't wander around much on the internet but it seems I've got something. I don't know.

Have you tried running your scans in safe mode?
Can you post your PCs' specs and OS....

  Duh on me! Should have thought of safe mode! Will do that but it will have to wait until tomorrow cause Granny is too tired now.
  My OS is 98se and what other specs would you like? The Everest report?

  Duh on me! Should have thought of safe mode! Will do that but it will have to wait until tomorrow cause Granny is too tired now.
  My OS is 98se and what other specs would you like? The Everest report?

Processor, harddrive, memory, etc.

  Now I am pretty sure that you don't want me to look up all that stuff and type it out. You must know a quick and easy way for me to relay this info. Care to enlighten an old fool?

Unless your wanting something new connected to it.  I think that its safe that you wont have to flash the BIOS.  Complications can arise if your not used to doing it.

[Global Moderator]

DO NOT FLASH YOUR BIOS
Flashing your BIOS would be a last resort in any case.


In Everest:
Open it, click Computer, then Summary.
In upper menu, go Report>Quick Report-Summary
Save it in text file, and paste it in your next post.
Don't include anything under line Debug - PCI

  You can relax guys, Granny's not going to flash anything! Ha ha! Shucks, I never get to have any fun! I certainly can't call the last couple of days fun!
  Let's see if I can make a long story short. I went to safe mode and ran SAS and found a couple of Adware tracking cookies and removed them. Next, I ran Spybot until it was 99% done and my computer became unstable and shut down. More than two hours of scanning for nothing but it had found RXToolbar early on so after the computer had rested for an hour I ran it again hoping to stop it as soon as it found RX and deal with it but the stop button didn't work. ("Thread error: The parameter is incorrect (87)" if that means anything to you.) So then I ran Avast and it found ezStub.exe, I dealt with it and continued until I got an Exception OE in VxD- - - and it shut down. With rest periods between I tried each of the scans again but nothing would run to completion so I gave up.
   That's when I found out I was stuck in safe mode. I tried every option in Msconfig and F8 at startup but couldn't get back to normal. It was driving me crazy! ( I have been told that it's not so much a long drive but more of a short putt.) After much pondering I remembered seeing a Boot Safe on SAS. It had "Normal" checked but I checked each of the others and then back to normal and restarted. Lo and behold, I was free at last!
  Then I uninstalled Spybot and spent over six hours downloading and installing a new copy and the stop button still didn't work! ERRRRRRRR!
  I have a thousand questions but I suppose I should start with 1- Is it normal for these scans to take two hours to run with nothing else running and so little to scan?    2- How can I get them to run and get rid of RXToolbar?
  My thank "button?" still doesn't work so...... Carbon Dudeoxide; Thank you for the very clear and concise instructions and may I add for the other newbies who may read this, you might want to remove the username.
  Here are my specs.

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