Computer appears to freeze

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guitarman

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Dunno what's going on but over the past week or so my PC seems to just suddenly stop. I can't move the mouse or type for maybe 10 seconds.

Windows 98 SE btw.

I've not installed any new software recently. I've run an adware and virus check, disabled wallpaper and screen savers and removed some old programs in an attempt to get it working again but with no luck.

Task manager shows nothing unusual is active but I suspect something is running in the background which is hogging resources and maybe not showing up on the task list.

Any ideas???

Cheers

Dick
 
Change to 2k or XP - they are less likely to display this sort of behaviour - unless connected to a network of course when it happens all the time if there are mapped drives to check.

Seriously now, there are any number of reasons this could be happening - most likely though a fragmented disk drive particularly if the page file is fragmented.

Task manager in 98 is a waste of time - to really find out what is going on on your PC I suggest downloading "Process Explorer" from

http://www.sysinternals.com/

It is freeware and is very powerful. It not only does it show you exactly what is running, it also shows you the dependencies of the various programs and their memory usage amongst other parameters. One of the best freebies out there.

Hope this helps to trace the problem.

Walter
 
check the fans not full of shite, overheating can be an issue on older machines, maybe too late mind
 
What wut said...(apart from maybe going to windows 2k....don't touch that with a shitty bargepole :mad: ).....

Dick, what virus software are you using, and more importantly, have you updated it regularly?? (most AV progs should be updated at minimum once a week, as new virii are invented and get released into the wild)

Secondly, as wut said, have you defragmented your drives???

As I remember, in '98, it's under accessories, tools, defrag or something similar...but if you haven't done a defrag recently, try that first.

Look at your start menu and see what's there....although you did say you haven't loaded any new software recently so that sounds unlikely, but remove anything that you don't always use and start them from the start button rather than have them run in the background (I'm thinking of stuff like ICQ etc)

next, what do you have on your desktop????

If you've saved any piccies or progs on it, then those pics etc will use up your RAM all the time........anything on the desktop is held in RAM rather than on your hard drive......

When the amount of stuff you have on your desktop gets big enough, the PC will start using the hard drive as RAM and it takes much longer to get stuff off your HD than from RAM......

SO, look at your desktop....save any pics there onto your hard drive instead and the same with programmes, and make shortcuts to them on your desktop if you need to. (each shortcut will only use 1kb ram instead of whatever MB the prog or pic took p on the desktop in RAM)

If all this fails, the first thing I'd do is save all your emails, files, documents, settings etc etc onto CD or wherever you can (network? laptop? webspace?) and reload windows......even just doing that should clean up the registry and make things a lot faster, but if you reformat the drive as well, then reload windows, then unless the hard drive itself or your ram chips are buggered, you should restore the speed that you had when it was new.

(PS I reload windows at least twice a year as a matter of course, and it always makes me grin how much quicker it all is :D )

PS......go out and buy yerself a new pc mate.......300 quid buys you an all singing all dancing jobbie that will be four times faster than your current one if you know where to look
;) ;)
 
Fanum said:
What wut said...(apart from maybe going to windows 2k....don't touch that with a shitty bargepole :mad: ).....

Dick, what virus software are you using, and more importantly, have you updated it regularly?? (most AV progs should be updated at minimum once a week, as new virii are invented and get released into the wild)

Secondly, as wut said, have you defragmented your drives???

As I remember, in '98, it's under accessories, tools, defrag or something similar...but if you haven't done a defrag recently, try that first.

Look at your start menu and see what's there....although you did say you haven't loaded any new software recently so that sounds unlikely, but remove anything that you don't always use and start them from the start button rather than have them run in the background (I'm thinking of stuff like ICQ etc)

next, what do you have on your desktop????

If you've saved any piccies or progs on it, then those pics etc will use up your RAM all the time........anything on the desktop is held in RAM rather than on your hard drive......

When the amount of stuff you have on your desktop gets big enough, the PC will start using the hard drive as RAM and it takes much longer to get stuff off your HD than from RAM......

SO, look at your desktop....save any pics there onto your hard drive instead and the same with programmes, and make shortcuts to them on your desktop if you need to. (each shortcut will only use 1kb ram instead of whatever MB the prog or pic took p on the desktop in RAM)

If all this fails, the first thing I'd do is save all your emails, files, documents, settings etc etc onto CD or wherever you can (network? laptop? webspace?) and reload windows......even just doing that should clean up the registry and make things a lot faster, but if you reformat the drive as well, then reload windows, then unless the hard drive itself or your ram chips are buggered, you should restore the speed that you had when it was new.

(PS I reload windows at least twice a year as a matter of course, and it always makes me grin how much quicker it all is :D )

PS......go out and buy yerself a new pc mate.......300 quid buys you an all singing all dancing jobbie that will be four times faster than your current one if you know where to look
;) ;)
Click to expand...

OK thanks guys. I'l ltry wut's suggestion first.

I'm using Norton anti-virus. It gets updated weekly.

I forgot to say that I've used Norton Systemworks to defrag the disk and tidy the registry, clear the cache and generally remove unsused links etc.

There's only about a dozen or so standard icons on the desk top (I removed 7 or 8 recently). No pictures or screen savers.

Used msconfig to get rid of all unused stuff from the start menu.

I'm resisting reloading windows as I've got too many files to save.

I still think it's an unseen process so I'll give wut's idea a go and if that doesn't work it looks like a new PC may be in order.

Thanks again.

Cheers

Dick
 
dump w98 is the best thing you can do. xp will run on some quite old pc's better than 98 ever did.
 
how much spare disk space have you got?

is it networked?

how do you connect to the internet?

does it stop whatever you are doing, or more with one particular application?

Hugh
 
.....ain't nuthin' wrong with XP , especially pro version.

SP 1 for home and AVG anti-virus .

You don't NEED a new PC - unless you want one of course............ :)

Just stick a 120GB extra drive and that'll speed it up no end.
 
shugie said:
how much spare disk space have you got?

is it networked?

how do you connect to the internet?

does it stop whatever you are doing, or more with one particular application?

Hugh
Click to expand...

OK, Shugie -

120GB of spare disk

No it's not networked

No it doesn't seem to matter what I'm doing. I've had it happen in Cool Edit Pro, the photo editor, word, Mozilla, Eudora etc.......

There's chance I can go to XP so I might give that a go.

Thanks for all your help.

Cheers

Dick
 
Right, just downloaded Process Explorer.

It seems that Windows Explorer suddenly bursts into life and hogs half the CPU for a few seconds. This coincides with the "freezing". Dunno what it's doing but it's doing summat.

Now I have to see if it's regular.

Cheers

Dick
 
Memory..

Guitarman..
Have you checked how much memory/HDD space you have free?

Try clearing your temp directories, cookies and assorted tatt lurking on your system. You may find your running out of memory to maintain cirtain operations so instead of using the RAM the system is using the swap file on the HDD, this is far slower than RAM, so you can get a slowing down/temporary stall.

A defrag and general system clean up, probably a good plan just off..

XP is great.. at first i used to like 98 for its simplicity.. but now happy with XP.
 
Re: Memory..

rocks said:
Guitarman..
Have you checked how much memory/HDD space you have free?

Try clearing your temp directories, cookies and assorted tatt lurking on your system. You may find your running out of memory to maintain cirtain operations so instead of using the RAM the system is using the swap file on the HDD, this is far slower than RAM, so you can get a slowing down/temporary stall.

A defrag and general system clean up, probably a good plan just off..

XP is great.. at first i used to like 98 for its simplicity.. but now happy with XP.
Click to expand...

Thanks rocks but I used Norton to clean the system and reconfigure the swap file but it doesn't seem to have made much difference.

Cheers anyway.

Dick
 
Not trying to worry you...

but I've just had a similar problem and reinstalled XP clean to try and track it down.

I finally traced it to a problem with the disk which (I think, fingers, legs and eyes crossed) was a slightly disconnected IDE cable on the disk causing the problem. I recently stuck a couple of SATA disks and a second 120GB IDE disk into my machine and somewhere in the process I nudged the cable...

Another (less worrying) possibility, and more likely on Win98, is the MS Indexing service - if you have a 120GB disk then the Indexing service will need to spend a noticable time checking the FAT table and indexing the drive. Problem is I can't remember how to switch it off any more and the copy of 98 I have running on Virtual PC is so slow I can't work it out - sorry.

Running a disk health check - options on right click - "properties" for each disk in "My Computer" - would probably be a good idea in any case.
 
Thanks trots - I've also installed a new disk bu the trouble started some time after I did that. I'll check the disks anyway.

Cheers

Dick
 
I'd be inclined to look at the disk as well, it may be on the way out, and just not responding quickly to a seek command. They are not expensive, so you might be best to get another one and then use something like Ghost, or my favourite, Paragon, to make an exact copy of the old disk on the new one.
 
If I remember correctly, there is a known 'issue' with Win98 such that when Temporary Internet Files exceed 500 (or some arbitrary number around there), the whole machine slows to a crawl. Seem to recall that clearing all of the files out of that directory (and sub-directories) made a significant difference.
It may mean that you have to log-in to your regular sites after you have done this, so try to remember your passwords!
 
Nippy Normans supply Touratech, Wunderlich, Desert Fox and many other makes of accessories.
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