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Category: Computer/PC discussions
PC freezing

All my internet programs freeze on my pc every few mins for about 30 - 50 secs at a time. I've done everything I can think of and had this problem for over 8 months and no one has managed to fix it. I'm using win98, 20gb hard drive, amd 1800 althon xp, 512mb ram, 80% free space on my hard drive.

I've reinstalled Win98 loads of times, I've got all new drivers, done everything I've been told and it still freezes.

The main programs that freeze are:

All version of browsers (IE, Mozilla, Opera)
Instant message programs
Outlook express
Winamp (when connected to the radio)

Anyone have any ideas?

night...
http://www.google.ca/search?q=pc+freezing&ie=ISO-8859-1&hl=en&meta=

took me to this page...
http://www.annoyances.org/exec/forum/win98/n1012785430
Is there an explination or question mark next to anything in your control panel? If you need some more IRQ's you can disable some old ports like the serial and printer in bios if you are not using them.
n' somebody else just a said®...
mine was doing the same during games, and i was advised on here to remove a side panel on the PC case to see if it was heat causing the problem. after doing this, i have never had a lockup, so invested in an extra fan to cool things down.

n' this was on just a nother® link...
http://cooltech.iafrica.com/swissarmy/howto/313506.htm
n' thattt one has just a lot® of things to check out...:O)))


n' /me just a remembers® doc telling me that sometimes??? when /me uses say some biggg prog??? thattt even when /me would 'quit' thattt prog didnt just a let® go of the memory or something???
n' /me would have to just a reboot® to get it back n' have it just a vailable® to use...:O)))

hoping that helps...goodluck...

Thanks JustaBusta, I've already tried all those things :( The largest program running can just be IE on it's own and it'll still freeze for 30 secs+

Perhaps if you defined a little better what you mean by "freezes". Things like how unresponsive the applications or system as a whole becomes during one of these freezes.

What kind of modem or network card are you using?

some possibilities:

bad RAM

bad modem/nic

MTU settings

could be a problem with one of your system buses.

have u tried reseating/relocating your modem/nic into a different PCI slot?

It happens when I'm offline too, if I use the phpdev to test scripts. So it happens when I'm not online also, but freezes using online applications - browsers to view my scripts, etc

<edit>How do I check for the buses and the other thing that was last mentioned? Can't remember what was said as I've been on the orange juice again</edit>

<editio>Other thing mentioned was the MTU settings, I got no idea how to check those</editio>

justame
mine was doing the same during games, and i was advised on here to remove a side panel on the PC case to see if it was heat causing the problem. after doing this, i have never had a lockup, so invested in an extra fan to cool things down. Had the same problem. Was told to do just as justame, and that seemed to be the fix. Just pulled the side cover off and bought a $10 clip on fan that blows thru the pc.

I've taken the side cover off too and have a desk fan blowing into it, was told to do that months ago and it's not changed anything :(

Athlon XP's are hot, but since this problem has been happening since January, I doubt thats the problem. What kind of hard drives do you have? I got 2 maxtor drives that you could seriously cook an egg on. If left in the drive bays the computers stalls every 2 mins whether or not I have a house fan right next to them. Right now they're hanging out the side of my pc and on colder days the work fine, just being out in the open. On warmer days I have to put the house fan on them. Have you tried re-installing windows? Could be a virus or damaged system files or drivers. Also try replacing your RAM, that's the usual cause for stalling.

Not sure if I've got the right information, but I've got a GENERIC IDE DISK TYPE47

It's got new ram in, as that was the first thing I was told might be the problem, also new processor, heat sink and fan.

Originally posted by Nightfire
Not sure if I've got the right information, but I've got a GENERIC IDE DISK TYPE47


All hard disks these days are type 47 or close in number. It's from way, way back in the day when BIOSes would have 30-40 different hard drives in their memory and by selecting the number it would enter in the number of cylnders, heads, etc. But when hard drives started getting big fast and new models came out faster than motherboard BIOSes, it was pointless to continue the practice... Hence, auto-detect.

I've never had a problem with Maxtor drives tho.

How about checking your video settings and/or reinstalling the video drivers?

My fiancee had a problem with freezing - the tech said he had to reinstall the drivers for the monitor.

Originally posted by Roy Sinclair
Perhaps if you defined a little better what you mean by "freezes". Things like how unresponsive the applications or system as a whole becomes during one of these freezes.

There's a reason I requested a clarification on what you mean by "freezes". If it's only the internet related programs that become unresponsive then global items like memory, video drivers etc aren't likely to be the problem. If it's the whole machine that becomes unresponsive then it's another class of problem.

Give use some specifics to work with and maybe we can narrow this down to the cause more quickly instead of just stabbing in the dark.

By "freezing" I mean that a program will work for a while, then after a few mins everything it is doing will "pause" for upto 50 secs. While it's froze, I can't do anything with it, it becomes unselectable with alt+tab - like when a program gets an error and you have to ctrl+alt+del to close it.

It will do this with every single program that connects to the Internet. I can be offline though and the programs will still "freeze" up for the same length of time.

I don't know any other way to explain it.

Originally posted by Spookster
What kind of modem or network card are you using?

i had a similar problem and network card was the culprit for me.

I'm using a HSP56 R, 56k modem

What you're telling me is that the single program is freezing and the rest of the system appears to be usable. That indicates the program is hung up waiting on something that's not responding but it also eliminates all the "hot PC", "bad video driver", "bad memory" and the like as probable sources of the problem.

The fact that it's happenning to all the programs using the internet is suggestive. Do you have any firewall or active antivirus programs running? If so you can try disabling them long enough to determine whether they are the cause of the problem.

If not, the next big suspect is that modem, it may have a bug in the driver for it. Look to the manufacturer for an updated driver or spend a few bucks and buy a different modem (from a different manufacturer).

Ok, I'll try the modem out. Thanks

Nightfire,

Do you keep your computer on all the time? If you do, you may have a problem with your memory management. I have heard that Windows 98 had pretty bad memory management, meaning that it would still keep some things in it's memory after you closed them. This means that pretty soon you can have a very small amount of memory available to you.

You might try restarting your computer every 3-4 hours or so and see if that cuts down on the amount of freezes you get.

I hardly keep the pc on, and usually after a few hours I have to reboot due to a prgram crashing on me

I recall having that same modem in my last system and had nothing but problems with it.

Downloaded the driver for my modem and installed it. Still not fixed anything :( Gonna pick up a new modem later and see if that's the problem

so is it just your internet progs that do this or not? cos you said a couple times it does it when you're offline too...

my pc used to freeze up too... randomly. it was very frustrating. eventually realized I didn't have enough memory. but you say you have 512mb thats more then enough sooo... another freezing prob I once had was when I was attempting (emphazis on attempting) to rebuild my pc... it would boot up, and then about half way through would freeze.... turned out my new cpu was too powerful for my old heatsink... got a new heatsink and all was good. you say you've taken off the side panel and blown a desk fan on it... that really won't do much I don't think... i think you really need a fan thats made for a pc. I'd get a new heatsink... if you're confident that its not the heatsink (since after all, yours seems to last a lot longer then mine did before freezing up, mine wouldn't even finish booting up) then get another PC fan that will blow air over the motherboard. PC's create a unbelievable amount of heat (mine can nearly heat my whole room in the winter without the heat on), especially athlons... and while your heatsink might be enough for the athlon, it still sits on the motherboard and the rest of the pc still gets very hot

I'm not pc expert but based on what knowledge I do have that would be my take on it so far

two words:
GRAPHICS CARD
do you have one? someone had the same problem on some forum i think and it was there graphics card. if you have one searcg for the errors other users get.
if you do have a graphics card post the make/model etc. of it

scroots










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