Windows 98 "freeze" during startup. 3

[Guest_imported]

I have a 12 month old 800 / 128 meg desktop computer that insists on ocassional crashing while on the internet or gaming - sometime with a constant buzz or hum. I re-set and during the startup it freezes on the window 98 logo screen. I must re-start in safemode run a scan disk ( no report of repairs) and usually I'm up and running for a several days. I have run an up-to-date Norton AntiVirus scan with no virus identified. Is there any history on this problem? Frozen in California.

Thanks in advance,
Salametomy

 

[reghakr]

occasional crashing...it's Windoze, it's inevitable.

Try these tips:

If it's running that poorly, right-click on My Computer, click the Performance tab and verify the File System and Virtual Memory are 32-bit.

Click the Virtual Memory button and make sure that Windows is managing the virtual memory. Move your swapfile to a partition with more space, if possible.

If those are OK, try these steps to eliminate unecessary program running:

The things that make the computer slow are the many unecessary items that automatically startup when Windows starts.

Right-click on the icons in the tray area, open each, go through the options to turn off the "tray" or "run at startup" feature.

For the others, go to Start>Run, type msconfig. Leave systray, scan registry, Load Power Profile (both), your virus scanner and firewall if you have one.

Go to Start>Run, type sysedit. Look over the autoexec.bat for unneccessary lines, click the win.ini and check for programs loading here:
[windows]
load=
run=

Open Explorer and navigate to c:\windows\temp and delete all files here. Empty the Recycle Bin.

Open Internet Explorer, go to Tools>InternetOptions, click the Delete Files and Clear History buttons. Click the Settings button, then set a reasoble size for the temporary internet files cache. I'd suggest 40MB for a 56K connection, as little as 10MB for a cable or DSL connection. If you have more than 4 folders under this key:

C:\WINDOWS\Temporary Internet Files\Content.IE5

If you're familiar with DOS, you can do this:
It will totally clean everything.

Click Start, click Shut Down, click Restart In MS-DOS Mode, and then click OK.

At the command prompt, type the following commands, pressing ENTER after each command, and pressing Y if you are prompted to confirm folder deletion:

cd\windows
smartdrv
deltree cookies
deltree history
deltree tempor~1
exit

The neccessary files and folders will be rebuilt at startup

Right-click on the desktop, make sure Active Desktop is turned off, then click properties and click the Effects tab. turn off Animate windows, menus, and lists.

Close all tray applications and hit Alt_Ctl_Del and end task on all items except for explorer and systray, disable your screensaver, then run scandisk, then defrag.

If you don't know what an entry is or what it does, post back.

If you're using Microsoft Office, look up this Knowledge Base article to kill the Find Fast Indexer

In Internet Explorer, go to Help>Online Support, choose the Microsoft Knowledge Base, then check the box that says specify an article ID number, then paste Q158705 into the search box. I'ts titled "How to Disable the Find Fast Indexer"

reghakr

 

[Guest_imported]

Reghakr,
I suspect you are correct as the unit improved slightly after removing several little used programs. I will attempt a full strip search as recommended and advise as possible. I sincerely appreciate your help.

Tomysalame

 

[BRBecker]

Some of the "startup" management mentioned above can be managed using PC Magazine's StartupManager utility available on their web site 9

http://www.pcmag.com).

Brian
BRBecker20@yahoo.com