WIN98SE Freeze

[olgaportland]

I am having a problem with my system freezing, since installing a wireless PCI adapter (D-Link DWL - 520+) and an A/Open brand DVD+RW/+R. I am running Win 98SE with 128mg of memory on a PIII 500 and have over a gig of free space on the hard drive. The system crashes without warning. In other words nothing slows down, or works poorly before the freeze. Everything is working well -- then nothing. I have installed a program that reclaims RAM to free up memory. With a couple of programs running, I generally have (or so the MemTurboII program shows) about 78 megs of memory available and that drops to zero at times, then I run the "recover ram", which seems to work well. These numbers, however, don't seem to have anything to do with the freeze. It can happen at any level of available ram. The system monitor shows Kernel: Processory Usage 100%. Is this just WIN 98? I don't want to install an even bigger operating system on this computer. Is there a way to fix this easily?

 

[1stITMAN]

performnace tune ur pc

http://www.windows-help.net/windows98/all-tips.shtml

http://www.thunderstar.net/~floppies/perform.htm

I.T Systems Support Engineer
Bsc. (Hons).

 

[TekTippy4U]

More RAM,
unless you've altered you're MapCache settings....
and 1 gig = what%...? of total HDD..you need atleast 15-20% free

TT4U

Notification:
These are just "my" thoughts....and should be carefully measured against other opinions.
Backup All Important Data/Docs..All involved shall be spared the grief.

 

[Najoba]

This was happening to my computer, too. My husband replaced my motherboard and that solved the problem.

 

[sciophyte]

I had a similar problem, I had a soundblaster live value in my machine, and that card does not work with the d-link 520 wireless card, make sure it is not offending hardware as well.

 

[olgaportland]

I have tried performnace tune ur pc

http://www.windows-help.net/windows98/all-tips.shtml

] and

http://www.thunderstar.net/~floppies/perform.htm

with no luck. I don't think I'll increase the memory as I would like to purchase a new computer some time in the next year. I don't want to pay for a new motherboard for the same reason -- money of course.

This afternoon, I sat down and went through the registry listings one by one. I found some references to an antivirus I'd had a couple of years ago and erased them. I guess un-install programs are not all cracked up to what they are supposed to be. That can't have been the only problem as things were ok (which is really only middling, given the age/memory etc.) until the D-Link install. I then uninstalled the D-Link software and everything at least back to what it was.

That was one gig on a ten-gig hard drive, so I will need to dump some software or documents.


For sciophyte, did you get your wireless card working properly?

 

[TekTippy4U]

RAM is cheap and your mobo sounds like it can take atleast another 256 Mb..so Go to

http://www.crucial.com

for good mem and/or others for cheaper mem..... they almost all have a system to match the correct mem you need

TT4U

Notification:
These are just "my" thoughts....and should be carefully measured against other opinions.
Backup All Important Data/Docs..All involved shall be spared the grief.

 

[sciophyte]

yeppers i did, i had a built in sound card on my motherboard, not as good quality but it works, so i yanked out my sound blaster live card and it was all fine and dandy.

 

[alvalongo]

Some freeze problems are causing by old version of dll files replacing the ones by Win98SE
check versions and dates in c:\windows\system of
ctl*.*
mfc*.*

The originals by Win98SE have the time "10:22"

 

[TekTippy4U]

Just to follow up, Olgaportland;
How are you makin' out?

you said earlier;
128mg of memory on a PIII 500 and have over a gig of free space on the hard drive
and
That was one gig on a ten-gig hard drive, so I will need to dump some software or documents.

Your Swap file needs room to Grow and Shrink and Win98 doesn't necessarily shrink it, just cause you reboot. It's directly related to the amount of tasks and page outs you were recently using...that's why I said free disk space, just as a guess before you posted info. One Gig is usually plenty for the swapfile, yet your PC needs more room than that for other tasks. You can monitor these things by using System Monitor and adding the selected items to monitor, like you have been with the CPU usage.

A DVD+R/RW will eat up unbelievable amounts of RAM...ALSO make sure that it's using the Correct DMA mode, you want it to Bypass the CPU on playback especially. Is it Internal IDE Master/Slave or External USB (1.1. or 2.0)???

TT4U

Notification:
These are just "my" thoughts....and should be carefully measured against other opinions.
Backup All Important Data/Docs..All involved shall be spared the grief.

 

[sciophyte]

to make sure it isn't a system file problem, i would suggest (i'm not positive if SE has this) go to start->Run->sfc

the system file checker will scan through and tell you if any files have changed, and if specified will automatically revert them from the cab files.

 

[olgaportland]

TekTippy4U
Is it Internal IDE Master/Slave or External USB (1.1. or 2.0)???

This is an internal drive. When you refer to bypassing the cpu on playback, do you mean that I need to change a software setting, or does this have something to do with the jumpers on the back of the physical drive? This drive will be used primarily for making data CDs.

Back sticker on my system reads, "npc or pc 9999"
Using their Belark Advisor I have:
500 megahertz Intel Pentium III
32 kilobyte primary memory cache
512 kilobyte secondary memory cache
128 Megabytes Installed Memory

Slot '0' has 128 MB
Slot '1' is Empty
Slot '2' is Empty
The original memory card was a c100 64 meg single sided. When I purchased the c133 128 meg, the salesperson said that since the new card was double sided being installed in a computer built for a single sided card that the memory would degrade and I would not have all 128 megs available. Does this make sense? Buy another c133 128 or replace with a c133 256? c100s are no longer available.

alvalongo
As for the dll files, I reinstalled Windows and there is an improvement and most, although not all, files show the tme 10:22.

A few days ago we had the wireless service installed (to service the wireless cards installed back at the end of December, which seemed to start the Win freeze in the first place) and after a few explanations from bcastner, we now have wireless internet and are downloading at 50k instead of 2k.


sciophyte
I ran sfc, which found one corrupted file, which it fixed.


1stITMAN
Have bookmarked and spent a fair bit of time looking around

http://www.windows-help.net/windows98/all-tips.shtml

 

[TekTippy4U]

This is an internal drive. When you refer to bypassing the cpu on playback, do you mean that I need to change a software setting, or does this have something to do with the jumpers on the back of the physical drive? This drive will be used primarily for making data CDs.
If set as Secondary Master, or Slave to Primary or Secondary, make sure BIOS is set to "Auto" Detect whichever particular IDE channel you're using...AND make sure "jumpers" on DVD drive match whichever config you're using.

Right click My Computer> choose Properties> Device Manager tab ..tick "View devices by type" >Expand CDROM tree to view DVD Player...Right click it and choose properties> Settings Tab...Tick DMA

Also in BIOS and Device Manager look for/make sure settings for "Both Channels Enabled" or more likely will say "Use Both Channels" in BIOS, under IDE settings area...and in Device Manager under "Hard Disk Controllers"....expand tree to view Properties on Main Controller (ala Intel 82371AB/EB PCI Bus Master IDE Controller) LOOK at "Settings" Tab..in the DropDown Box for "Both Channels Enabled"...

You'll also see Primary and Secondary beneath and that's normal
More on DMA here;

http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/if/ide/modesUDMA-c.html

The original memory card was a c100 64 meg single sided. When I purchased the c133 128 meg, the salesperson said that since the new card was double sided being installed in a computer built for a single sided card that the memory would degrade and I would not have all 128 megs available. Does this make sense? Buy another c133 128 or replace with a c133 256? c100s are no longer available.

No it doesn't, Not that I'm aware of....
Your 128Mb is obviously being recognized....Just "Add" More, don't replace
Go to;

http://www.crucial.com

or

http://www.4allmemory.com

and punch in your numbers/model of PC and they'll hunt down the correct RAM your System Needs....There's alot of diff variables, but basically PC133 is fine.
I have one box with a PII and came with PC100 standard, yet use PC133 and it's just fine...

TT4U

Notification:
These are just "my" thoughts....and should be carefully measured against other opinions.
Backup All Important Data/Docs..All involved shall be spared the grief.

 

[TekTippy4U]

You may very well also have a "System Resource" Prob....which is diff than System RAM...
Go Start>Run MSinfo32
View Right Pane at diff times you're using/running prog's to view % of resources..

Alternately;
Start>Programs>Accessories>System Tools>"Resource Meter"
If you don't see it available,
Go to Control Panel>Add/Remove Prog>Windows Setup Tab>System Tools> view Details...tick Resource Meter to install....remember it'll use a little resources on it's own to keep running in taskbar.
It'll sit in Systray...Right click Icon>choose "Details" to view or Exit to kill


TT4U

Notification:
These are just "my" thoughts....and should be carefully measured against other opinions.
Backup All Important Data/Docs..All involved shall be spared the grief.