Hey Gang,

Yet another problem with my home computer. I have an HP (5 years old) running win 98, 512 mb of ram and 20 gb hard drive.

Recently, the computer has been locking up on me to the point that I have to physically shut the machine off from the power supply. I ran "DocMem" thinking it was a memory issue but everything passed.

Any suggestions?? (other than get a new computer :smash: )??

Thanks

Bob

you did the 3 finger salute as in...... control -alt - delete first?
your hard drive isnt full right?

CNN does that to me once in awhile..... do you use screen savers? they run in the background constantly and eat allot of memory so if so.... disable them.
have you run adware? sometimes its due to pop under ads too
delete all your temp folder junk..... reduce the amount of space devoted to that or increase it.... for clues...(trial and error)

if you go to screensavers (dot) com - you can download a free program that graphically displays what's actually running in the back ground....

keep me posted - as for hardware - you can go to contol panel/
system/and then->device manager ->click on devices and see if anything isnt running properly also look for yellow exclamation marks in devices....
try that stuff and re-post

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,4149,1406616,00.asp?kc=PCMOD0302TTX1K0000631


free download dude:btu:

ctl alt delete did nothing for me. It was completely frozen. I ran norton to check for virus' with no luck. Adaware ran, nothing. Tried to defrag and it wouldn't let me. When it locks, there is nothing that will work other than a hard shut down.

I'll try that download. Thanks Raven

you can do the RENE' procedure..... an acronym that stands for R.E.N.E rapidly eliminate the non essentials....

dont know your money situation but it could be your hard drive too...one cool way to play around is to go out and buy a 50,100,
150,200, or 250 GIGABYTE ~external~ hard drive then create an empty c-drive on it and copy the whole drive over there...so you can whipe your system with the format c:/ command in dos...

i just recently had to do that and i believe it was a friggan virus that did it and man was i pissed.... lotsa down time...:af:

Bob too many things to list...

can you describe the enviroment your computer is in?

also can you tell us whats in your system? AMD, INTEL..

Last thing you did when you noticed this happening..

Also get your system into safemode.. if everything is running smooth and no hangs then you've narrowed it down to software.

Quote from: Computer Hope
"To get into Windows 98 / ME safe mode as the computer is booting you press and hold your "F8 key" on the top of your keyboard or press and hold the left or right Ctrl key as the computer is booting. If done properly you should get into the "Windows 98 / ME Startup Menu" similar to the below screen example. In this menu choose option 3 by pressing the 3 key and press enter.

Note: With some computers if you press and hold a key as the computer is booting you will get a stuck key message as the computer is booting. If this occurs instead of pressing and holding the "F8 key" tap the "F8 key" continuously until you get the startup menu."
http://www.computerhope.com/issues/chsafe.htm#01

Leptar,

I'm running a pentium III. The computer sits in a large computer desk. The tower is in a closed cabinet with an opening in the rear for ventilation and wires. The room is hardwoods and clean. Maybe you might be onto something here.....could it be a bad fan or some residual dust causing it to overheat? Maybe I'll open it up and give it a cleaning.

I really can't narrow down the last thing I'm doing when it locks up. Once it was while printing a word document, another while checking in on the internet and another while I was trying to go to standby. Come to think of it, standby seems to cause quite a few hangups.

I'm pretty baffled about this one. I remember a few years ago, HP told me there was a problem with my bios and they had me download updates for them. It worked for about 2 years up until now.

I'll tell you the problem in one word... Win98.

i am using it forever ...many OS geeks still like 98 but the second addition is preferable ..its highly configuable much more so than other restrictive operating systems....

when you boot up you will hear a single post beap (usually 1 anyway) post -on- self -test-(BEAP) is when you are to press the f-8 key and yet others prefer the tapping method.
the other trick: is too hold down your control key through the whole boot up process which makes windows by -pass certain start up files... you running semantec stuff? and dido on the environmental angle. Most homes have extremely dry air in the winter time and the air is drier than the sahara desert (literally)\and perfect for dust to float around. I bought a pretty cool mini vacume accessory kit consisting of a reducer off house vacume and nickle sized brushes for cleaning your PC - but a good lint round vacume brush will clean the back real good.

never use stand by it sucks and is evil i say! ooOO))) wheres my:
silver Cross ,silver bullets ammo, garlic, wooden stakes and a huge narly mallot. holy water powerblaster. vampire kit....around here some where.... ahhh here it is :D

Bob,

Take the cover off and boot up the system. It could possibly be a bad CPU fan causing the CPU to overheat. It's located on the motherboard and it's probably about an inch or two wide. You can probably pick up a replacement at Radio Shack or maybe even Best Buy. Probably 10 bucks tops.

Keith

My guess is it is probably not your hardware but windows 98.
I used to use windows 98 and it was almost an anual event were I would have to restore my system. I now use XP becouse it is based on windows 2000 wich evolved from windows NT. Windows NT file system and registery is alot more stable.

Your're best bet is to back up your important files, such as your "my documents", on a CD or disk and then go and do a full restore on you system. Your HP should of came with a restore disk. Once you restore you will loose every thing that you had installed on your computer after the time of purchase. So you will have to re-intall alot of software and updates afterwords.

PS: Alls before you restore, it might be a good idea to allso write down all your passwards that your computer normally remembers for you such as your internet sign in pass words.

I love XP, but it was allso a pain to install becouse I had to buy a new modem and CD drive becouse my old modem and CD Drive were not compatable. But after that my machine now runs like a charm now. I don't miss win98 at all any more.

I have to agree...I'm a firm believer that a system should be nuked of its operating system every 12-18 months. the constant loading and unloading of apps and web pages leaves tons of rogue .Dll's and files all over the place that just start crazy errors.

Backup your Docs, your favorites folder and anything else you might want and run the restore

if your processor is above 400 Mhz I'd also consider upgrading to Win 2k....I'm not a big fan of 98 either.......its just 95 w/ upgraded bugs. and it looks like you have plenty of memory

just had to do that this morning ---> running win2k pro now.