stupidbum wrote in
:

Windows vista home basic
im using a dell inspiron 4305
with an intel(R) core(TM)2 CPU 4400 @ 2.00 GHz 2.00 GHz
2046 MB of RAM
32- bit operating system

my problem is that whenever i start up any game that i have on steam
itdwq either crashed my whole computer and i have to reboot, or the
game crashes and an error message saying "hl2.exe has stopped
working". yes my steam games used to work perfectly fine.
and i uninstalled my google toolbars and avg 7.5 because on the steam
site it says that those things could cause it to crash...
yes i bought the system with vista on it.
i uninstalled all of my games and reinstalled them and they still
didnt work so i uninstalled steam all together and reinstalled steam
and they still dont work.

Sounds like you have a firm grasp on troubleshooting games, I guess I'll
point out the semi-obivous, if reinstalling steam doesn't help then
there's something else on your system, something you changed or
something that has changed that's causing the problem.

I would recommend running System Restore and rewinding your system files
to a date before all these problems started occuring.

You said you have an Inspiron 4305, but support.dell.com doesn't list
that model as a notebook or a desktop Inspiron model. I would suggest
going to Dell support online, find your system model in the Drivers and
Downloads are and make sure you get their latest drivers.

Note that these drivers aren't they newest, they are just the ones that
Dell supports. If you know your video card make/model, and your
motherboard chipset make/model you may consider getting video/chipset
drivers from the manufacturer directly. If you're not sure how, double
check your system model number or post your video card/chipset info
here.

If you disabled System Restore (why?), or if SR doesn't go back far
enough in time then you may end up simply reinstalling Vista. Something
installed or changed on your system causing the crashes. When HL2.exe
stops working does it generate an error log?

--
-A.