Perl/DBI: "PERL caused an invalid page fault..."

I guess I have two problems, the original problem and
another problem with attempting a solution.

(1) I used to have the DBI module working fine on this
W98 SE system. Now when I try to access a database via
a perl script, the script crashes and windows says:

PERL caused an invalid page fault in
module DBI.DLL at 0177:1000a5a0.

Simply saying "use DBI" triggers this error.

(2) I say, gee, maybe I should try reinstalling DBI 
so I run PPM and say "install DBI", and I get "Error
installing package 'DBI;': Could not locate a PPD file
for package DBI;" which seems kinda silly because
there is something called 
http://activestate.com/packages/DBI.ppd sitting right
there.

btw my 'perl -v' says, in substance: v5.6.0 built for
MSWin32-x86-multi-thread (with 1 registered patch, see
perl -V for more detail)

I'm stumped. Will gratefully accept any clues.

PS to R Bowen -- wanna help me now, or later after
Advanced Perl starts (-: <grovel> ?

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