Win98 freezes for about 5 seconds every few minutes. 2

[AndyHo]

I have about 4 computers loaded with Win98 that freeze for about 5 seconds every three or four minutes. Most frustrating for users and causing me some grief.

I have disabled virus checkers and used Alt/Ctrl/Delete to remove programs running in the background without success. Where the heck do I look next?????

Andy Holden

 

[PeterGillham]

This sort of sounds like a driver problem.

 

[cdogg]

Does it occur in safe mode?

 

[jlfiller]

Is it on a network? Disconnect it and see if the problem goes away. If so, look at your NIC and the client and the cabling. JL Filler,Wilton Public Schools, Wilton CT

 

[AndyHo]

Thanks

2 good ideas. Try without the network then if that fails see what safe mode does. At least that gives me a starting point.

Andy Holden

 

[Luckyfour]

Do you have McAfee? There have been some postings about the McAfee shield, etc. causing these kind of problems. If so, let me know by replying to this message and I can show you the two threads on Tek-Tips.

 

[AndyHo]

We are using VET as the Virus Check. The problem goes away when the network card is disabled..... SO...... we have replaced the network driver and so far no problems.
On the other hand this does not mean that we have solved the problem bercause all the computers were working with the old network driver for a while. I'm wondering if upgrading VET may have brought the problem on. Is this similar to the McAfee problem??

Andy Holden

 

[Luckyfour]

Have a look on the Tek-Tips Network Associates: McAfee site and you'll see on pages 1 and 2:
Errors in MCScan32.DLL
Applic Error with McShield.exe
Virus Scan V5.21
Hope your problems are resolved with the network card.

 

[hotfusion]

Sounds like you may have the hard drive set to switch off after a few minutes. The freeze could be caused by the need to wait for the drive to re-start. Check by right-clicking a blank area of your desktop, clicking 'properties',go to the screensaver tab, then go to the energy saving 'settings' button near the bottom. See the bottom window which sets the hard drive. Ensure it's set to 'never'. My suggestions are what I would try myself. If incorrect, I welcome corrections to my rather limited knowledge. Andy.

 

[menny10]

HI,
maybe is a heat problem in the power box, or a bad fan of the processor, some times if you work with u pc in nights it does freezes until the heat of it is to much and don*t has way out of the case, until you check all the fans of the power box and processor, maybe you thik in software problems.

 

[mscallisto]

While this is a tough one to figure out via threads here are a few things that may help.

From My Computer...right click on any white space (not an icon) then click properties, goto the performance tab to see system resources.

Somewhere around 80%+/- usage is generally nice to see while 50% is generally not so nice and means you may have too many programs competing for memory.
Sometimes this may cause the effect you are seeing.

You can stop some of the competing programs if they appear in the system tray by right mouse clicking the icon.

Other memory resident programs may not appear on the system tray but nevertheless are using memory. They can be disabled using msconfig.

Start
Run
msconfig
pick the Startup tab to view all the programs loaded at Windows startup.

Uncheck any programs not needed e.g. LoadPowerProfile if you are not using a laptop etc., then REBOOT.

Much Luck

 

[estesflyer]

do you have winmodems? I have had computers run terribly (lagging, mouse skipping, even halting...) with winmodems connecting to the internet.. This may not be your problem, but I thought I would mention it anyways since all my other ideas have already been mentioned...

Good Luck!

TIA

- Rusty - Rusty

 

[AndyHo]

OK The story so far. The problem has cropped up on four identical machines. The updated driver has solved the problem on two (I thought). I spent some time looking at the others and was about to tell one of the regular users of one of them that it was all in his imagination when bingo it froze for about 5 seconds. Two minutes later it did it again.

Ctrl/Alt/Delete showed ptsnoop running in the background. A bit of research showed that this is used where modems are conected. Had a look in the bios and sure enough there is a modem on the motherboard. Disabled this and things seem OK.

Had a look at the two "fixed" machines and their modems had been disabled. Went to the fourth and sure enough it was enabled and ptsnoop was running. In fact ptsnoop had stopped responding. Disabled the modem and got rid of ptsnoop and all seemed well.

I had no idea about existence of the modems until that point.

What next?????????

Andy Holden