Hi! I'm hoping someone on here can help me, because I'm quite at a loss as to what to do.
I'm using a Dell Dimension 8300, and I'm running Windows XP Home Edition, Service Pack 2. It has an Intell Pentium 4 CPU 3.00GHZ, and 512 MB of RAM. I use EZ Armor Firewall and eTrust Anti-Virus, along with AVG Free Version Anti-Virus. I also have Ad-Aware SE Personal version, also free, for catching spyware.
I'm having a problem with a driver on my system. It causes my computer to crash and give me the blue screen of death 1-2 times a day, and in addition, it has been running a lot slower and programs keep on freezing. This computer has a 112 GB hard drive with 60% still free, so I don't think it's because I'm out of space.
When I first got this computer back in 2003/2004, it came with a trial version of McAfee firewall. At one point, it kept trying to force me to pay for it and kept messing with my other firewall, so I tried to uninstall it first by using the program's uninstall command. For some reason, it didn't work, so then I tried to delete it VIA Add / Remove Programs. It kept saying that it was deleted, but the icon was still in my taskbar and the program was still there and was still running.
So, in a moment of impulsive stupidity, I went into the Program Files, found the McAfee file, and manually deleted everything in it, file by file. It took a few tries to get rid of everything, but eventually I thought I had. The computer had crashed periodically from time to time, but it's happening now with annoying and alarming frequency. The last 5 crashes have sited 'MPFirewall.SYS' as the offending driver that's causing it. That driver is part of the McAfee Firewall that I thought I had deleted. Since I deleted all the other files and accidentally left the driver there, I guess it's causing my system to crash by trying to do stuff with files that aren't there?
I tried downloading and running McAfee Virtual Technician, which "will scan your system to ensure that your McAfee products are installed correctly," according to their website. I ran it, and it said that it couldn't find any trace of McAfee products on my computer.
The first couple crash screens I got told me to use CHKDSK /F to check for hard drive corruption. I did that, and it didn't find any problems.
The other crash screens all told me to use/do the following:
1.) Driver Verifier - I ran it, and it found the driver and monitored it and gave me some technical information with a lot of numbers, but it didn't offer any actions to take with the driver.
2.) Special Pool - I enabled it, but again, no difference and nothing happened.
3.) Update Windows - I tried that, and it made no difference.
4.) Disable BIOS Memory options; caching & shadowing - I didn't do this, because I don't know how.
5.) Uninstall new software / hardware - The only thing I installed that I noticed system problems afterwards lately has been Windows Live Messenger. After I installed it, the system started crashing, but it kept and keeps identifying 'MPFirewall.SYS' as the reason.
So, my first question is how can I fix this?
Secondly, if I were to go into the DRIVERS folder and simply delete the 'MPFirewall.SYS' file, would that make the system more unstable or worse, or could that fix the problem? I tried typing 'Manually Deleting Drivers' into google, and I didn't get anything helpful. So then I typed in 'computer help' and found these forums.
Please help!
