windows me freezes (hangs) at random

[CountryBumpkin]

I thought I would shoot this out into cyberspace and see if any of you have any suggestions. Windows seems to randomly freeze while maximizing or minimizing the window. Ctrl., Alt., Del. will not reboot and I'm forced to do a hard boot. This will occur even with 2 or 3 active windows. I've tried setting the folder view both opening within and as a second window. I'm running an IBM netvista 2276 model 22U with the OEM version of Windows ME. I think I've exhausted all software-related issues that could be causing this. I reformatted the hard drive, repartitioned, and installed just the bare minimums in the product recovery CD...sure enough it still does it. This occurs prior to installing any other hardware/software necessary for internet access. IE v4.0 comes preinstalled. Norton 2000 (OEM version) comes pre-installed. Drivers for the display, keyboard, mouse, video card, drives, and motherboard come pre-installed. Updating everything has no effect. I have Norton 2003 and don't seem to have any embedded viruses. I'm 99.9% sure that it's not a hardware issue with memory, overheating, or the like. What am I missing here?

 

[Styx]

If the computer's still under warrantee call IBM. Say how much RAM you have installed please. It could be a low RAM amount error. If you're using IE 4 you should certainly upgrade to IE 5.5 or 6 but WinMe comes with IE 5.5 by default not 4.0. your old outdated browser version may be doing that to you. get the upgrade(s) from http:windowsupdate.microsoft.com. If you really do have IE 4.0 you must get IE 5.x from

http://download.com

before going to the above site.

***

*** Mandatory (get a firewall of any brand) - Get free Sygate personal firewall anti-hacker countermeasure from

http://www.Sygate.com.

(not the Sygate Pro demo) 'Don't let anything out to the Internet you don't know what it is.' Also please see

http://www.firewallguide.com/

for more information on why all on-line home computers should be firewall enabled. Emachines, Celeron 600, 256 Mb RAM, 30 Gb HDD, ADSL.

 

[thebest2uDon]

To run Windows Me well go to the Me FAQ #5 thebest2uDon

 

[Taztasha]

I have the answer to your Netvista, type 2276, model 29U, hang/freeze problem, but you're not going to be happy. The problem is in the motherboard. I worked on a neighbor's system that had the exact problem. It started out intermittently and got worse. I tried all software fixes to no avail. I finally narrowed it down to the motherboard. (There is evidently a problem with that board.) Anyway, to prove this theory, I installed a different hard drive, memory, and Windows 98 (to eliminate Win/ME, memory and the hard drive). The PC still froze. I know this isn't what you wanted to hear, but trust me, the motherboard is defective. Regards, Art

 

[mattjurado]

Taztasha...

I realize this is an old post, but I can't believe what I just read. That's pretty irresponsible to tell someone they have a mainboard issue without looking resolving all other possiblities... It could be video, RAM, hard disk, power supply, cpu, or some other expansion card causing the issue... Before telling someone to go track down the most expensive part on the computer, they could try to swap out with an old video card or power supply to see if it goes away. It very well could be the mainboard, but just because it happened to you, doesn't mean the same issue belongs to him. It could even be a loose cable!!!

Freakin MSCEs....

Matt

 

[CountryBumpkin]

Well, I think you may both be right. My on-board video card appears to be the culprit. Unfortunately it's not just a driver issue. Rather than replace the entire mother board, I just plugged in a pci video card. After disabling the intel card in bios, I haven't had a single hang.

Thanks for all the help, I was at wit's end with this one.