WinMe-Major Pain

[Guest]

I bought Windows Millennium about a month ago. I figured that maybe it was worth what I paid for it. Boy was I wrong.
I just can not get it to run stable. It crashes all the time. Can't play games on it(they skip and lockup). Can't use it for any extended period of time either.
The most severe problems seem to come at shutdown time. That is when the blue screens like to come and visit. And this is only seen after firing up a nice game and getting the OpenGL started. This all leads me to believe it is the Video card. But I replaced that.. Replaced RAM... replaced board... replaced CPU. Replaced HD. Replaced everything. Still NO GOOD.. I have tried different drivers from nvidia, and that didn't help either. Basically, I have tried every way I knew how to make WinMe run on my system.
If ANYONE can give some advice or tips on what I could do to make it run then let me know. It isn't that the hardware in my system is faulty, because I have NO problem running Windows 98Se at ALL.. No lockups, no blue screens, nothing like that.
Here is my system config:
AMD Duron 650
256MB PC-133 SDRAM (Micron Chips)
Abit KT7 (non RAID)
Jaton B32-Plus (Nvidia TNT M64 w/32Mb RAM)Using latest Detonator Drivers *Also tried reference*
USR/3Com 3CP2977 PCI Hardware Based Modem
SB AWE64 ISA
Delta 52X CDROM as Secondary Master
Plextor 8x4x32 as Secondary Slave
IBM 45GB 75GXP HD Primary Master w/2 fan hd cooler
Inwin A500 case with Antec 300watt Power Supply
MS Optical WheelMouse USB
Windows 98SE w/VIA IRQ Routing patch

**Oh yeah. Can't get Win2000 to act right either. It doesn't talk to well to my other system that runs Win 98. the networking just seems to NOT work between these two when I run Win2k Pro. Tips here on the network would help too**

 

[misu]

try killing all the schedulling crap in the regs. worked for me and faster boot too.

 

[Guest]

I share your pain in installing WinME.I have 3 PCs, all networked using LAN TCP/IP.I managed to successfully clean install, with minor glitches but overcame them.Both are low spec PCs ie. AMD K6-2/300 with Voodoo2 & the other Intel Pentium 166MMX with Voodoo1.However, my problem was with my AMD K6-2/450.It never had any problem with Win98SE at all,which is what I've gone back to.
When I initially did a clean install, everything went well without any problem. However, when it came to self rebooting
phase and WinME tried to recognise Plug & Play components,
thats where things started to go wrong.The screen went blank
without regaining any graphics. I cold booted it into Safe Mode,I tried to install my nVidia TNT2 32MbM64 drivers,but
rebooted with similar result.Next reboot, I managed to put it to Normal Mode.This time the graphics appeared, but in
640x480@ 16 colors & when I tried to change it even to 256
colors, the same blank screen occurred. I've even tried to
installed the latest driver from Nvidia(W9x-631.exe)again without result.Being a persistent sort of a guy, I've tried to reinstalled 15 times, on different occassions.I did tried
replacing the TNT2 AGP card for my old ATI Rage 2C 8MbAGP card and to my surprise, it worked. I tooked my pc backed to the vendor who sold me the TNT2 card. He did a similar clean install, he even swap to another similar card, but still couldn't explain why it didn't work.I was wondering if the problem could be hardware incompatibility or is it a software ie. WinME or nvidia drivers (neither to original or the latest drivers worked)
My PC H'ware config is:-

AMD K6-2/450 3DNow
Chaintech Super Socket 7 model 5AGM2 with latest BIOS 2/11/99
Joytech Apollo TNT232mb M64 AGP card
Fujitsu 20 Gb. @ 7200rpm UDMA ATA 66
Yamaha OPL3-SAx s'card
Realtek compatible 10 mbps ethernet card
Rockwell 56kbps data/fax speakerphone ISA modem
40 speed CD ROM Drive....the rest is standard m'se & K'bd

So like rtq, I'm wondering if there's somebody who had similar problem and successfully overcame the problem & who
would like to share their solutions.

Buzzzzzzzzzz's the word... Cheerio! ++

<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by Buzzer on 11/21/00 03:59 AM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[RavenPrime]

WinMe is a major pain and I am seriously considering going back to Win98SE.
I have two sytems that I built. The older is a PII 400MHz on a FIC board with 128MB ECC PC100 SDRAM CAS2, 14.4 GB IBM Deskstar ATA/33 HD, and Rage Fury 32MB video card. I now have this one at work.
The newer one at home is an Asus A7V with 900MHz T-bird, 128MB PC133 SDRAM, 30GB Deskstar ATA/100 HD, and an Elsa Gladiac Geforce2 GTS video card.
I installed WinMe on both. I was able to do it on the work system without a hitch and it has been running stable since. Not one re-install.
I have re-installed WinMe on my home system close to 10 times now and it still does not run stable. Despite claims, the driver support for WinMe and fast system components is weak or non-existent.
I first had problems with the system booting up--it would take a minute or more unless I booted in logged mode which points to a driver problem. Updated drivers from Via and Promise finally fixed that problem. Plus I had to turn off fast paging for the AGP card.
It is bull*$@#! that you have to castrate your systems performance to get it to run.
The computer runs fine most of the time now but it has annoying tendency to lockup randomly requiring a restart. I am convinced this is due to the detonator 3 drivers for my video card. I am waiting for new updates to thier driver.
My recommendations so far:
Update your BIOS
Update your ATA/100 controller if you have one
Update Via 4in1 drivers if you have a VIA chipset
Update to DirectX 8.0--this fixed the problems with my DVD player and the system hangs less often (only 2-3 a day).
Do a clean install.
Disable system restore and delete all the files listed in the registry startup keys.
Run scandisk regularly--scandisk on reboot after a crash doesn't clear all the errors. Go to the advanced menu and select everything.
Defrag often.
Don't get WinMe if you have a new fast system.

James

 

[Guest]

I think that the last guy had the right idea. Going back to 98SE is a good Idea at least for now. They still havent figured all of the glitches in ME and I have the same problem as you guys. If you still have it just keep watching the Windows Update page for updates or go back, or you could get really smart and get Win 2000 or Linux. They are both more stable although Linux is another operating system alltogether.

-Matt-