Win 98 Lockup question

[r1013]

Me and my wife both are using Win 98 first ed., have Pen 2 400 MHZ, systems with 224 MB RAM each. (Yes I know their anchient but moneys been scarce the last two years). when we browse the net we turn everything off in the background except AVG virus (which takes little sys resources anyway), and I alone run Sygate so we can share the net. I occasionally run getright.

The problem is that our computers seem to freeze up way to much. We will be on the net from 1-2 hours with around 7 windows open and then it starts getting choppy and within 1-3 mins or so it freezes. 1 out of 10 times ctrl/alt/delete will help free it all up, but even then it really needs rebooting to act right.

I use to have 96 MB of RAM and the 224 MB that I have now acts no different. My wife says the same about her system to.

We both Clean out our temp files, run disk clean up, norton disk dr & sys check, & Degrag about once a week.

Anyone have a suggestion on how to stop this or decrease its frequency until I can upgrade to something else?

Thanks,
r1013

 

[nja469]

You said you're on the first release of 98, so have you downloaded and applied most all patches from windows update?

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[r1013]

We went to windows update and applied whatever patches that was suggested.. minus of course all the extra themes etc..

 

[nja469]

Since these are older components, have you opened up the cases and blow them out with dust cans? Also check that all the fans are operating and dust free. I honestly can't think of much else unless you're getting specific errors from windows to help further isolate the problem. I know it doesn't help much, but consider an upgrade to XP if possible. It's a more stable OS, and if hardware is failing it will log this and give better details to help replace a possible defunct component rather than the entire system. Other people will come by here soon too and give you more suggestions, hopefully someone can pin point it.

"Opinions are like assholes, everyone has one"

 

[r1013]

I put a new hard drive in my wifes computer last Christmas and I blew hers out then. My power supply went dead about 3 months ago and I blew mine out then. I do have a copy of XP Pro a friend gave me, but I didn't think it would run to hot on a 400 MHZ system. What do you think? I was waiting until I had the money to upgrade to install it. I suppose both computers could be dusty again though.. I will blow them out. That wont take but a sec anyway. I'm not sure if anything is failing or not. I do have a fan that gets noisy at times but everything seems ok. Believe it or not.. I played through OFP with this 400 MHZ and a Voodoo Banshee.

 

[nja469]

Actually I've had very good experiences with XP Pro in older systems. My parents computer and laptop, which both are ancient PC's finally run stable with XP. Their Aptiva desktop has a (don't laugh) pentium 266 w/mmx. LOL, not even a P2. I upgraded the ram to 256MB. I also replaced the video card with a tnt 4MB and a cheapo sound card since the on-board sound and video died. Anyhow it came with windows 95. I tried windows 95, 98SE and ME on it, but it still crashed very often - sometimes so badly it would require a new windows install. So I said I'll try XP Pro and if no better I'm telling them it's time for a new machine because I was really tired of it. I did that 9 months ago and haven't had to touch it since.

Also their laptop is an old compaq with a p2 450 i think. I only upgraded that to 192MB of ram, other than that my dad says it's much more stable and easy to use compared to 98. So I've had two good experiences with XP Pro on older PC's, I would try it out - much more stable all around. I recommend doing a new install if you do decide to go with XP and backup up everything as a precaution. It's a rather smooth install, once complete update it via windows update and install your backups and programs. Be sure to check out your current software suites websites and see if they're compatiable with XP and if not if there's a downloadable patch or upgrade. If anything the generous user base of kazaa will sure to lend you a copy of the newer software suite )

"Opinions are like assholes, everyone has one"

 

[Alex11]

Try Changing the "Typical Role Of This Computer" to Network Server (Under My Computer-->Properties-->Performance-->File System) & set a stable System Cache (Under My Computer-->Properties-->Performance-->Virtual Memory) With a minimum and a maximum of 336MB (& press yes on the warning)... Also Remove one of the "LoadPowerProfile" entries on MSCONFIG.

Hope it helps...

 

[r1013]

I'll try changing the role to a network server and changing the cache. Depending on what other post I get I may try installing XP this weekend or next whenever time permits.

Thanks for the post so far