The MIDNIGHT FREEZE!!! Win98

[punzola]

Hi,
my computer freeze's everynight without fail bang on MIDNIGHT! The screen go's completely blue with the exception of a small grey box in the middle. Virus??? I need some help obviously. I like to leave it running over night for downloads.
Spec's.
P3 500mHz
384 Ram
20gig HD
TNT2 64meg ram
DVD/rom
CDR
standard keyboard / mouse

It was working fine for a couple of days after the re-install and last software that was added was mIRC, but then it was still running ok until now.
Oh well, any help would be much appre!!!
THX.
pun.

 

[Sashanan]

A consistent freeze at exactly midnight? A virus would be my first guess. Getting an up-to-date virus scanner and seeing if it comes up with anything would be your first priority.

As an experiment, try booting Windows in safe mode, then setting the clock to a minute before midnight. See if it crashes in safe mode, too.
"Much that I bound, I could not free. Much that I freed returned to me."
(Lee Wilson Dodd)

 

[tempo21]

if its exactl midnight then u got a virus. See if you can copy clock files again ?

Do you leave your PC on all day ?? make sure its not overheating. T3/\/\p()
tek-tips UK branch!
_________________

http://www.tempocentral.com

 

[deh]

As said could be virus. If not What Antivirus software are you using? That could be the culprit. Do you have anything set to Automatically run at this time? such as Virus scan? I've seen virus scan freeze systems.

 

[punzola]

thanks for the replies, this place is the best forums I've been too!! Anyways...
I've been using Nortons Anti Virus 2001 and update the def's every week. I also virus scan atleast once a week but nothing comes up in the way of virus.
No. 1 I'll get a new virus scan.
I'll try the tips laid down here first. thx for the replies.

 

[SoulAssassin]

I agree with everyone above that it might be a virus. There's a good website to go to if you haven't gotten the new a-v software...housecall.antivirus.com. Also, I've had problems with the Windows Critical Update Notifier, check to see if you have this and remove it as it only causes problems from what I've seen. I actually saw that program crash (freeze too) a pc every 5 minutes when it tried to get out to the Internet.

 

[WMH]

I have to agree with everyone here about the virus thing and if you do use the housecall that pc-cillin provides, please don't just take their word if it says your system is clean. I knowingly downloaded a virus from a client while getting a backup of their software for work. Before I downloaded the backed up data to my server, I scanned the disk using pc-cillin's house call and it said it was clean. As soon as I loaded the backup, my server caught the virus. Thank goodness I know how to take care of cleaning up Nimda or I would have been sunk. At any rate, I spend about 35 hours a week cleaning client computers because of a virus and I have seen them do some strange stuff. This sounds like one.

Good luck,
WMH

 

[GrafSpee]

It could also be a program that is set off at a certain time. My pc came with some webtv software and it would check for channels every night at one. It would slow down my computer but not lock it up.

But chances are if you don't have current virus definitions, a virus is crashing your computer.