Freezing problems..

[spike232]

Running an IBM Athlon 600 mhz computer, SR9 graphics card, ESS Solo-1 Audio card, 575 mb's of memory, running it primarily as a gaming/internet system. It is running off a cable modem behind a router.

My problem is that it freezes on me, no error is popping up, it just simply freezes and I have to manually reboot the system. It's irratating because if I try to start up a game it goes as far as the startup screen and then it just freezes. If anyone could help me with this problem I would greatly appreciate it!

Spike232

 

[spike232]

Dummy me, I forgot to include was OS I'm running,
it's Windows 98 SE.

thanks

Spike232

 

[wolluf]

Could be any number of things - plus win98 has a habit of just doing this! (which is why I abandoned it years ago & went with NT, then 2k for stability - once you've got them setup ok, they just don't have this sort of behaviour - XP's much the same).
Sorry, not much help for your problem - I'd advise an upgrade to XP.

 

[rockerfellerz]

Does the machine freeze just running the game or just randomly no matter what you are doing? I had the same problem with one of my computers a while back. It would just freeze up hard with no errors given. I tried everything even a complete re-install of a different OS, and still had the problem! Finally i completly disassembled the machine and rebuilt it in a diferent case.While doing so I noticed that some screws holding the mainboard in the case were loose. I made sure they were tight when I put it back together. This solved the problems. Has been running very stable for months now. It could be bad ide cables as well.

 

[thatrenowned]

OK, a number of things to check\do:

* Make sure the computer isn't overheating
* Make sure there are no loose cables, and as rockerfellerz stated, make sure there are no loose screws.
* Check that the cables aren't frayed\torn etc in any way.
* Check other connections...one time my mouse was loose and it caused it to go all over the place randomly (not the same problem but you get the point)
* Update all drivers (graphics, sound etc). If you can find out what type of board you have and get the right chipset drivers, this would be a great help.
* Update DirectX
* Defrag, Scandisk and virus check

I realise a lot of these are standard maintenance points, but if after doing all these it still freezes, I would look at your hard disk. I've had several computers randomly lock up when the hard disk was soon to die.

Does your computer make any strange noises? Have you added any hardware\installed new software recently?

Regards

 

[jsams]

Check the graphics acceleration setting. Have solved many W9x freezing problems by backing down the acceleration. System usually sets it to max.

Jsams

 

[ANFPS26]

Had a similar problem sometime back. Replaced the video card
and it hasn't frozen since. "A little knowledge is a dangerous thing....."