Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community - View Single Post - Comp. help needed badly. random computer freezes

TwistedFate · 08-08-2003, 01:03 AM

Okay, I'm not by any stretch of the imagination a computer novice, but I'm at the end of my rope. I'm hoping somebody here can give me some ideas I haven't thought of.

Stats:
Acer MX36LE-UN MoBo (onboard sound and video, video disabled)
PIII 1.1 GHz
384 Mb SDRAM (128Mb, 256Mb)
80Gb HDD, partitioned into two 40Gb
NVidia GEForce II w/32Mb
Linksys Etherfast 10/100 NIC
Westell DSL Modem
Samsung 40/12/40 CDRW
Windows 98
Everything is app. 1 year old or younger (except Win98, duh). Everything was bought new by me.

Here is the problem. The computer periodically freezes up on me at random times. I've kept a log and can't see very much of a rhyme or reason to it, except for a mild graphic connection to the timing. It is more likely to freeze while a game is running. It freezes while surfing this board, although this may be coincidence as this is the last board I surf in my routine and I stay here longer than anywhere else. It freezes when doing big graphic manipulations in both Photoshop and Paint Shop Pro. The only concrete example I have is during the game Industry Giant II the more transportation vehicles I have, the more likely it is to freeze. It will occasionaly freeze during standard windows operations with multiple windows open. I have run it with the GEForce installed and the onboard disabled and with the GEForce removed and the onboard in operation. No difference. I have had so many different occasions on which it freezes that I really have no idea what to try anymore.

The only solution once it freezes is to cold boot the system and recently the system has starting hanging on reboot. When this hang occurs a warm boot with the 3 finger salute will reboot it, but it may not completely reboot again.

One final thing, as a drastic attempt to fix it, thinking a file may be corrupt I formatted the Primary partition and reinstalled Windows. Three days later the computer wouldn't boot at all, so I reformatted and started over again. This was about 2 weeks ago.

My friend is dying for me to get rid of Win98 and install ME. I won't do it until I have some idea of what is going on as WinME isn't different enough from Win98 for me to believe that it will fix it. An XP install may be in the future, but again I don't want to do that until I have an idea what the problem is since it may make things worse.

I am out of ideas. I am looking for any and all ideas of what may be the problem no matter how simplistic. Chances are I've tried it, but I want to hear everything anyway.

Okay, I have one idea that just came to me that I haven't tried yet. 128Mb of the RAM is from my old computer. I'm going to remove that now and see if that helps. Then I'll swap chips and try that in case the two chips just don't like each other. The mobo is supposed to take mixed mem sizes, but there may be a problem with one chip.

Thanks in advance.

08-08-2003, 01:03 AM	#1 (permalink)
TwistedFate Crazy	Comp. help needed badly. Okay, I'm not by any stretch of the imagination a computer novice, but I'm at the end of my rope. I'm hoping somebody here can give me some ideas I haven't thought of. Stats: Acer MX36LE-UN MoBo (onboard sound and video, video disabled) PIII 1.1 GHz 384 Mb SDRAM (128Mb, 256Mb) 80Gb HDD, partitioned into two 40Gb NVidia GEForce II w/32Mb Linksys Etherfast 10/100 NIC Westell DSL Modem Samsung 40/12/40 CDRW Windows 98 Everything is app. 1 year old or younger (except Win98, duh). Everything was bought new by me. Here is the problem. The computer periodically freezes up on me at random times. I've kept a log and can't see very much of a rhyme or reason to it, except for a mild graphic connection to the timing. It is more likely to freeze while a game is running. It freezes while surfing this board, although this may be coincidence as this is the last board I surf in my routine and I stay here longer than anywhere else. It freezes when doing big graphic manipulations in both Photoshop and Paint Shop Pro. The only concrete example I have is during the game Industry Giant II the more transportation vehicles I have, the more likely it is to freeze. It will occasionaly freeze during standard windows operations with multiple windows open. I have run it with the GEForce installed and the onboard disabled and with the GEForce removed and the onboard in operation. No difference. I have had so many different occasions on which it freezes that I really have no idea what to try anymore. The only solution once it freezes is to cold boot the system and recently the system has starting hanging on reboot. When this hang occurs a warm boot with the 3 finger salute will reboot it, but it may not completely reboot again. One final thing, as a drastic attempt to fix it, thinking a file may be corrupt I formatted the Primary partition and reinstalled Windows. Three days later the computer wouldn't boot at all, so I reformatted and started over again. This was about 2 weeks ago. My friend is dying for me to get rid of Win98 and install ME. I won't do it until I have some idea of what is going on as WinME isn't different enough from Win98 for me to believe that it will fix it. An XP install may be in the future, but again I don't want to do that until I have an idea what the problem is since it may make things worse. I am out of ideas. I am looking for any and all ideas of what may be the problem no matter how simplistic. Chances are I've tried it, but I want to hear everything anyway. Okay, I have one idea that just came to me that I haven't tried yet. 128Mb of the RAM is from my old computer. I'm going to remove that now and see if that helps. Then I'll swap chips and try that in case the two chips just don't like each other. The mobo is supposed to take mixed mem sizes, but there may be a problem with one chip. Thanks in advance. __________________ If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate. Last edited by TwistedFate; 08-08-2003 at 01:43 AM..