I was on the net browsing the forum ( also had winmx running ) when suddenly a blue screen came up saying something like "windows as shut down to prevent damage to your computer ", can't remember exact words but it was something along those lines .
At the bottom of the screen it said something about "dumping physical memory" and a counter started going up from 1 to 38 (at which point I turned pc off at power switch .
Now I'm back on the net I'm getting regular warnings from Zone Alarm,when I check for more info it says something about a file sharing tool ( e donkey and kazzaa )trying to access my computer.
I also noticed that since this happened my hdd free space as gone up.
Is someone hacking my pc ? If not any ideas what happened ?
I've never had this blue screen before.

Do you have one of those green "frogs"? (The Alcatel modem for ADSL)

I don't think you have been hacked sometimes windows does that.


Roger

very unlikely you have been hacked. Most likely some sort of hardware device causing the problem. Search for any problems regarding the hardware you use (graphics card etc), and update the drivers if needed.

How exactly do I find out if there is a hardware problem ?
Is there some kind of scan I can do ?
Also what was happening when it said "dumping physical memory" ?
Thanks for any help

Do you also get IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL?

It might be a problem with a new piece of software you have.

Have you added any new hardware?

I think "dumping physical memory" means it is copying all the info from the RAM to the hard drive.


Roger

Originally posted by Roger Moore
Do you also get IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL?

It might be a problem with a new piece of software you have.

Have you added any new hardware?

I think "dumping physical memory" means it is copying all the info from the RAM to the hard drive.


Roger

m8 I haven't recently added any new software or hardware .
I'm bit concerned to what happened,I've had this pc 4 months now and up until now had no problems at all.
Thanks

"IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL" occurres because something, most likely a driver, crashed, or your hardware may be failing.

"Dumping physical memory" means the system created a file on your harddrive that contains an exact copy of everything that was in memory when the system crashed. This is for troubleshooting and diagnostic purposes. This memory dump will be a file who's size equals the amount of memory you have in the system. If you have 256megs of RAM then a 256Meg file was created on your harddrive with an extension of .DMP. After a while these .DMP files are automatically cleared to free up space.

QWERTY : I don't remember seeing "IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL" when the blue scrren came up.
I have found the .DMP file (511 mb) m8 but can't open it,should I be able to ?
Like I said in my original post "dumping physical memory" and a counter started going up from 1 to 38 (at which point I turned pc off at power switch) .Should I have waited ?
Anyway do you think my computer just crashed and nothing else ?
Just seems strange getting all the Zone Alarm warnings .
Also m8 should I do a system restore or something to a time before this happened ?
Many thanks for your help